Panasonic Toyota Racing began preparations for the Bahrain Grand Prix with two full practice sessions today. After the wild weather of the early races of 2009, it was sunny at the Bahrain International Circuit, with air temperatures ranging 32-37�C and track from 43-57�C. Toyota’s Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock had busy days collecting data for Saturday and Sunday. Both drivers used only the medium Bridgestone tyre compound in the morning but they sampled both that and the super soft in the afternoon. The team will now analyse the information to finalise set-up for qualifying and the race.
Jarno Trulli
“We collected a lot of data here during our winter tests at this circuit but the conditions today were very different. 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.”
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Timo Glock
“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. 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.”
Dieter Gass, Chief Engineer Race and Test
“Today was a very good day for us overall. Even though we mainly had fine conditions during winter testing here, there is still a significant difference in temperature. So we had to reassess some of the items we had already tried. We have some updates in aerodynamics and brake cooling here and we ran through our programme without issues. The tyre behaviour certainly seems less critical than in the last few races. So this is a very good baseline for another strong showing on Sunday.”
Jarno Trulli (Car 9, Chassis TF109-06)
1st Practice: 15th, 1m 35.036s (+1.389s), 22 laps
2nd Practice: 3rd, 1m 33.616s (+0.277s), 37 laps
Timo Glock (Car 10, Chassis TF109-05)
1st Practice: 17th, 1m 35.333s (+1.686s), 20 laps
2nd Practice: 8th, 1m 33.764s (+0.425s), 37 laps
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