Formula One news

Sauber upbeat after positive test

Sauber Petronas conducted a three-day test from 26 to 28 April at the Pista di Fiorano. The first two days Felipe Massa did the driving before Jacques Villeneuve took over on Thursday. They covered altogether 404 laps (1,187.760 km, 738.014 miles) with a best time of 0:57.870s. They validated the new rear-end which was introduced in Imola and tested different new front wings. In addition, they evaluated several cooling options and did set-up work in preparation for the forthcoming races.
"We run high downforce at Barcelona, and I am confident that we will be in even better shape than we were in our recent test there as we have since introduced the revised rear-end aerodynamic package that gave us such a performance increase in Imola," said Sauber's technical director Willy Rampf. "We have also since worked on our traction control and mechanical set-ups, so I think we can be in effective shape this weekend."

"One of the characteristics of Barcelona is that the track is very sensitive to temperature change, and as it rises the grip level goes down," he added. "You thus find that what works well in a morning session does not necessarily work so well in the afternoon, and continually have to make changes to compensate. This will make tyre evaluation challenging on Friday, and will surely keep the engineers on their toes!"

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