Paul Ricard Round Up

By Ian Lockwood
May 18 2006

Critics of F1 often say it is all an illusion and for the past 3 days, RBR, along with several others, have created the very clever illusion of racing through the streets of Monaco on Tuesday and Wednesday, before magically switching to the track in Montreal, just a short hop across the Atlantic.

This was all madepossible by the variety of track layouts on offer at the Paul Ricard HTTT testing facility in the south of France.

On the first two days of testing, the car were running in maximum aerodynamic downforce configuration, as well as adopting a chassis set-up suited to the twisty streets of Monte Carlo. Also on the agenda was defining which two types of tyre to take to the next round of the championship. In addition, new suspension items were under evaluation.

The final day saw a change of track and a switch to the other extreme in terms of running very low Canadian downforce levels. “Today was hectic as we packed in Canadian tyre choice work, car set-up and development work,” commented Chief Test Engineer, Ian Morgan.

“Over the three days, we learnt quite a bit about the car which will serve us well over the next couple of races, however, problems with engines and some development parts on the gearbox meant we did not complete as many laps as we would have liked.”