WilliamsF1 completes Valencia Test
Juan Pablo
By Andrew Hooper
January 26 2003
The BMW WilliamsF1 team completed their four day test at Valencia, prior to the launch of the new FW25 on the 31st January. Again Juan Pablo and Marc were present, joined only by the McLaren team. The team focused on continued development work for the FW25.
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| Valencia Test 24:01:2003
Day Three of Four |
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The BMW WilliamsF1 Team
completed their four days of testing in Valencia, Spain. The days testing
would be run under fine conditions allowing both Juan Pablo and Marc to work
through their test schedule. There weer only two teams present at the
circuit, those of WilliamsF1 and McLaren.
Both Juan Pablo and Marc were able to continue the testing of new components
for the FW25, which will be launched on the 31st January. The team also
completed tyre testing for Michelin during the day. Marc was able to
continue development work on the new P83 engine.
 At
the end of the day Marc would complete eighty five laps, more than a race
distance, while Juan Pablo also clocked up an extensive number of laps,
seventy in total.
Juan Pablo would set a best
time of 1m:11.634, which was only 0.013 seconds slower than McLaren driver Kimi Raikkonen,
who was the fastest driver of the day. Marc would finish with a best time of 1m:11.901.
On the day both drivers were able to set impressive top speeds, with the
fastest been 294.93 kilometres an hour.
One aspect that would also help the team improve their performance was the
introduction of a new fuel introduced by Petrobras.
After the testing WilliamsF1 Chief Operations Engineer Sam Michael commented
by saying: "This week is the last test before we release our new FW25 chassis. Olivier
was on hand again for two days at the beginning of the week for wet testing
with Michelin and this was followed by Marc and Juan undertaking four days
of dry weather testing.
Marc has driven hard which has enabled progression of engine, gearbox and
brake systems work on the interim FW24D chassis, while Juan has been
concentrating on tyre testing, suspension developments and launch control.
Both drivers have undertaken a full programme of traction development,
during which they have conducted some runs without traction or launch
control.
During the tyre testing, Michelin have found another promising compound and
we have also verified a gain in tyre construction. The Michelin engineers
are making really good progress, which is encouraging at this point of the
year."
BMW Motorsport Director Dr Mario Theissen added his views: "As well as supporting the chassis and tyre development work on the car, we
have also been able to complete an extensive engine development programme
during the Valencia test. We had no unexpected incidents and we are pleased
with the progress achieved. Our tasks were divided between testing new
components for the P83 BMW engine as well as working on the engine's
mapping. Step by step, we are finalising the engine's configuration for
Melbourne."
The BMW WilliamsF1 Team’s next scheduled test is at Barcelona commencing
Saturday February 1 for five days. |
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Pos. Driver
Team/Engine Time Laps
1. K Raikkonen McLaren Mercedes 1:11.621 25/81
2. JP Montoya WilliamsF1 BMW 1:11.634 23/70
3. M Gené WilliamsF1 BMW 1:11.901 57/85
4. A Wurz McLaren Mercedes 1:11.910 38/88 |
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