Formula One continued to plough a furrow thorough what has been a surreal week today, as the final day of testing before the winter break saw Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso set fastest time of the day, a 1:18.213.
Of course, we should take it as read that this time was set on slick tyres, and such is the irrelevance of the times this week it may as well have been with a V10 3.5ltr, too.
(It wasn’t, though.).
Robert Kubica again went well – on the smooth tyres – to set second best time of the day, and Nico Rosberg came home third in the Williams FW29, just a little quicker than team mate Kazuki Nakajima, the Japanese settling in well at the team and setting fifth fastest time of the day.
Reports have alluded to Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari setting fourth best time – one second off the fastest – as ‘raising eyebrows’, it being set on slicks, but apparently with 2009 levels of downforce.
Raised eyebrows indeed – a second slower than a Toro Rosso? And why bother with 2009 settings? The mind boggles.
Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli again appeared as Toyota representatives, the young German coming home sixth, and the Italian ninth.
The ever approachable Trulli can claim quote of the day, however:
“"We tried to achieve many things today so it was quite busy for me…"
Speculation that one of the many things was an attempt at the world dwarf-juggling-while-riding-a-unicycle record is believed to be wide of the mark, but then it would have been no less surprising than the news that Renault didn’t get a fine, and Mclaren have to wait until February 14th to find out whether their new car is a Ferrari or not (in the opinion, strictly, of the WMSC that is….)
The other Ferrari – driven by forgotten man Felipe Massa (congratulations on your recent wedding, Felipe, from all at UpdateSport) finished seventh, with the second Toro Rosso of Champ Car title holder Sebastien Bourdais just behind him. Bourdais, it must be said, must wonder what on earth he’s got himself into right now, with all the nonsense and shenanigans surrounding F1 at the moment. Here’s some advice, Sebastien, do not, on any occasion, e-mail, SMS, phone or talk to anybody not involved with your team. Doing so will most likely incur a massive fine for breach of Article 151c (it covers everything.)
David Coulthard was running for Red Bull (I’m sure they’re version will be more amusing than mine) and behind the Honda/Super Aguri confusion reigns.
It’s notable that both Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato were running in Super Aguri’s today, as Honda – like McLaren and Renault – have used up their 2007 test mileage. However, it’s the same car – so how does that work? Anyhow, they both set times, somewhere.
Marko Asmer drove the second BMW, had a little off, but was pretty decent otherwise. At least he beat the two Force India runners, today taking the form of Giedo van der Garde and Roldan Rodriguez, another pair of drivers with little or no chance of racing an F1 car next season.
Quote of the day two goes to that team’s new owner, the charismatic Vijay Mallya, who said of the test….
“Not only have we demonstrated the strong potential of the team by attracting five highly talented drivers to test for us….”
…which begs the question – of the SEVEN drivers who tested for you this week, which two did you think were crap?
That’s it for testing, and court cases, for this year, but we look forward to all the action in the New Year, when we can look forward to Max Mosley’s exciting libel case against the Sunday Times.
Written: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:17:09
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