Williams, Red Bull conclude Valencia test

Red Bull's David Coulthard returned to Europe to attend the test, ahead of next weekend's Australian Grand Prix.

The Scotsman drove a new RB2 chassis, initially working on suspension and tyre evaluation for the San Marino and European Grands Prix.

On the second day, Coulthard concentrated on set-up changes, but Red Bull's testing ended prematurely due to undisclosed technical problems. Nevertheless, chief test engineer Ian Morgan described the two days at the Spanish trac as "the best test session we ever had with RB2 so far."

Williams ran with Narain Karthikeyan on the first day, then using Alex Wurz for the final two days.

The Austrian ran well over 200 laps over these two days, concentrating on engine development work for Cosworth as well as tyre evaluation for Melbourne.

"We had another very windy day in Valencia, so making the final tyre choice for Melbourne was more difficult than normal," remarked today Mike Condliffe, Williams's test team manager.

"Alex had the track to himself though today and, despite the weather, worked through the scheduled tyre programme and then finished the test with some brake development work at the end of the session."

Simon Corbyn, head of F1 race engineering at Cosworth, added: "The Cosworth CA2006 Series 3 test specification engine ran for three days in Valencia.

"Our objective was to accumulate track running on a number of new components as part of our ongoing engine development programme.

"This engine also included a change specifically targeted at addressing Nico Rosberg's Malaysia race failure, and this update has been implemented for Melbourne."

Valencia times:

Driver       Team       Day 1         Day 2          Day 3
Coulthard    Red Bull   1:12.901  82  1:11.752   69  -
Wurz         Williams   -             1:12.689  103  1:13.233  100
Karthikeyan  Williams   1:13.897  79  -              -