Jerez Test: 05 Mar - Nakajima completes Jerez Test

The final day of the AT&T Williams test would see Kazuki Nakajima continue his testing duties. It would not be until the middle of the day before Kazuki would take to the track. Kazuki would continue with the preparations of the FW31 for the 2009 season, including set-up work, tyre and aero testing.

After a red flag period in the afternoon Kazuki was the first to leave the pits, the Williams driver did that with a test launch at the end of the pit lane. After having spent the morning in his garage, by mid afternoon he had only completed eleven laps. But he was able to complete fifty four laps by the end of the day. His best time of the day would see him fifth with a 1m:212.226. The day was also hampered by several red flags, one when Hamilton would damage his car when he left the track.

Team Quotes:
Sam Michael, Technical Director, Williams F1:
“We finished our five day test in Jerez today with Kazuki running through the 2010 tyre programme for Bridgestone. The tyres are designed to run without blankets, while the fronts will also be narrower than this year’s. Overall, we’ve had a productive week evaluating aerodynamic components and mechanical set-ups, as well as putting valuable mileage on engines and transmissions to be ready for Melbourne. Although we have not completed our programme fully, the Toyota engine’s durability (with the new, longer life regulations) has been extremely impressive.”

Nico Rosberg:
“I managed to get some productive running in dry conditions this week and I covered a lot of mileage. Reliability was also good. We’ve done lots of development work on the car and Toyota seem to have done a great job in modifying the engine to 18,000rpm. Lap times are slower during the long runs, but that seems to be across the board with these tyres and will probably make the racing very interesting. Apart from the long runs, we mainly tested mechanical set-ups and aero parts over my three days in the car.”

Kazuki Nakajima:
“My two days in Jerez were quite badly affected by poor weather. We had strong winds on both days and then some rain this morning as well. When out on track, we worked on our aero package and testing mechanical parts. We had a good run yesterday, doing lots of comparison work, and we now have some good results to take back to the factory. We spent today testing the 2010 tyres which was interesting and it’s given us an idea what running tyres without blankets will be like.”