Winter test no big help for Toyota

Toyota drivers Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock admitted having tested in Bahrain earlier this year did not give them a big advantage in today's practice sessions

The Japanese squad was one of the teams who decided to test at Sakhir during the winter in order to avoid the bad weather in Europe.

Trulli, however, said the conditions were very different today, meaning the data gathered during the winter was not very helpful.

Despite that, the Italian set the third fastest time of the day.

"We collected a lot of data here during our winter tests at this circuit but the conditions today were very different," said Trulli. "So we had to change some of our set-up in order to suit the car to these temperatures, which are much hotter.

"There is also quite a lot more sliding around than we had in the winter but I guess that's the same for everyone.

"We spent the day going through our usual programme of tyre testing and set-up work. We still need to find a bit more driveability in the car but it's not a bad start to the weekend."

Glock, eighth quickest, also said the car felt very different compared to February's test.

"During our winter tests at this circuit we had a good, consistent pace but so far today I've found the car quite hard to drive," said Glock. "The lap times aren't bad but I've been struggling for balance.

"So we'll have to work overnight to sort out our direction for tomorrow and to get the car back to where it should be. If we can do that then I'm sure we can keep up our strong start to the year."