McLaren again not making the top

By Karl King
April 14 2006

Contrary to belief by some forum members, including myself, that McLaren would be saving the best until last, the team again failed to make an impression on the very top of the Barcelona testing timesheets.

Today's quickest man was Renault tester Heikki Kovalainen, who was not only the fastest man of the day, but also the week, and the young Finn is infact edging ever closer to the Barcelona lap record held by Jenson Button in his V10 powered Honda. The record is a 1m13.552, Kovalainen posting a 1m13.926.

In a 1-2 for the Renault team, Giancarlo Fisichella was three tenths off his team mate. Jarno Trulli again impressed putting his Toyota third, with Jenson Button just a couple of hundreths off in fourth.

Following Michael Schumacher, who was fifth was the MP4-21 of Kimi Raikkonen, only a few hundreths behind after 100 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya.

Despite a mechanical problem in the morning, Kimi was happy with the week's testing “It has been good to get back to testing this week in Barcelona, and continuing the work that the test team has been covering over the past few weeks since the start of the season. Although the track has been closed a lot, because of all the red flags, we have still been able to work through a lot of development work with the MP4-21 and we are continuing to make good progress with the car. When you see how close the times are between the top few cars in testing, when you are focused on your development programme rather than times, it shows how much of a competitive season we have ahead of us this year!”

Juan Pablo Montoya set the sixth fastest time, completing only 30 laps during the day. A mechanical failure for Juan Pablo also lead to his car leaving the track. The engineers worked to fix the car, but when on track the Mercedes engine developed a problem and the team ended his test early with only an hour left to run. “My two days at this week’s test at the Circuit de Catalunya were focused on Michelin selection for the Spanish Grand Prix, which takes place in a month from now. We have been evaluating the prime and options with Michelin, with some interesting results, and have been able to conclude the process today.”

Pedro de la Rosa, who was present at the test on Tuesday, although not today said "Although I was only on track for one day, it was a positive day and we make some positive progress work on the set-up and general development of MP4-21. It was certainly good for the test team to have two MP4-21s on track."

The team now head to San Marino for the Grand Prix next weekend, with testing at Silverstone following that.

Full Times from Barcelona 14/4/06

1. H. Kovalainen - Renault R26 - 1'13"926 (+0"000) - 132 laps
2. G. Fisichella - Renault R26 - 1'14"302 (+0"376) - 90 laps
3. J. Trulli - Toyota TF106 - 1'14"686 (+0"760) - 86 laps
4. J. Button - Honda RA106 - 1'14"708 (+0"782) - 131 laps
5. M. Schumacher - Ferrari 248 F1 - 1'14"734 (+0"808) - 78 laps
6. K. Raikkonen - McLaren Mercedes MP4/21 - 1'14"752 (+0"826) - 100 laps
7. J.P. Montoya - McLaren Mercedes MP4/21 - 1'14"878 (+0"952) - 30 laps
8. R. Barrichello - Honda RA106 -1'15"018 (+1"092) - 54 laps
9. F. Massa - Ferrari 248 F1 - 1'15"217 (+1"291) - 76 laps
10. J. Villeneuve - BMW Sauber F1.06 - 1'15"321 (+1"395) - 98 laps
11. M. Webber - Williams Cosworth FW28 - 1'15"338 (+1"412) - 83 laps
12. A. Davidson - Honda RA106 - 1'15"583 (+1"657) - 69 laps
13. R. Kubica - BMW Sauber F1.06 - 1'15"791 (+1"865) - 97 laps
14. R. Schumacher - Toyota TF106 - 1'16"041 (+2"115) - 67 laps
15. A. Wurz - Williams Cosworth FW28 - 1'17"752 (+3"826) - 21 laps
16. T. Sato - Super Aguri Honda SA05 - 1'19"512 (+5"586) - 13 laps