3 days at Paul Ricard for Ricardo Zonta

Good data gathered
By Huw Alban (31/03/03)
March 31 2003

Far from Olivier Panis and Cristiano da Matta getting all the lime-light at Barcelona, Ricardo Zonta was also grafting at Paul Ricard as the Toyota team split their efforts across two locations. Whilst the regular drivers prepared for Brazil, Ricardo was already working on San Marino.

The Brazilian used the interim TF102B chassis whilst the 2003 cars are being shipped around the world, and worked mainly on tyre evaluation for Michelin. He completed 274 laps in mostly dry conditions and appeared pleased with his weeks work.

"We have had a very busy three days at Paul Ricard," Ricardo said to Toyota-F1.com . "We have completed a lot of useful work, mainly testing and evaluating Michelin tyres in preparation for the San Marino Grand Prix, but also looking ahead to some other European races. We also carried out some work on traction control. We completed a massive number of kilometres this week, gathering lots of promising data and it was certainly a nice feeling to be behind the wheel for such a long time this week."

Ricardo joins the regular driver team at Paul Ricard on the 8th of April for a 4 day test programme.