The Spyker Formula One Team continued its test programme today with the new F8-VII at the Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. Christijan Albers took over driving duties from Adrian Sutil and completed 110 laps with a best time of 1:24.425secs. Albers and the team focussed on putting in longer runs and accumulating data on the performance of the new Bridgestone Potenza tyres. In warm, sunny conditions, Albers covered more than 500km without major mechanical problems.
Chief technical officer, Mike Gascoyne, commented, “Our second day of testing was largely very productive. It was Christijan’s first day this test, so the day was mainly spent getting him acclimatised to the car and the Bridgestone tyres. We also made some set-up changes and concentrated on working with the tyres over some longer runs. Again, we had excellent mechanical reliability and no real problems whatsoever, and now we’ve got a handle on how the tyres are working, we can continue with Christijan to learn about the car and get some more performance. “
Albers added, “I think we had a good day. For the first time in months I was able to do over 100 laps so I was really happy. We worked hard with a lot of things to make the car quicker - it’s not easy, but we’re doing our best and did a reasonable time. Over the day track conditions changed a lot, particularly in the afternoon, and we saw that almost nobody was able to do a quicker time later. We’ll continue our programme tomorrow and try some more set-up options, but you can’t take away the amount of laps we did with no major problems. “
Christijan Albers will continue the team’s test programme tomorrow in Barcelona, the final day of the three-day test.
Testing data
Air temperature: High of 18ºC
Track temperature: High of 25ºC
Weather: Warm and sunny
Laps completed: 110 laps
Driver: Christijan Albers
Track: Circuit de Catalunya, Spain
Best lap time: 1:24.425secs
F8-VII culminative testing data (since 1 January 2007)
Total kilometres run: 1,237 kilometres
Total days: 4
Christijan Albers: 712km in total
Adrian Sutil: 525km in total
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