More testing needed from some teams

Home » Blog » | exclusively posted by Martin Porter

With the final group test of the winter ending in Bahrain yesterday, most outfits wrapped up their winter programmes and are shipping their cars to Melbourne.

But today Toyota and Red Bull have confirmed that they plan to test again prior to the 2007 season opener.

Cologne based Toyota announced in a statement that it will run next week at Spain's Jerez circuit.

It has been suggested that Toyota's new TF107 contender still has major problems to over come if it is not to be the slowest of the manufacturer-backed teams, even though it has sizable budget.

"Obviously we have some issues to sort out," Ralf Schumacher admitted, "but we will work hard at that next week."

Meanwhile over at Red Bull team principal Christian Horner confirmed that the RB3 would reappear for two days at Magny Cours next week, but played down suggestions that the test was organised to trial last-minute updates for the car.

"As planned, the RB3 will run with the new aerodynamic package that will be used in the first race in Melbourne," he said.

Further 'shakedown' tests are also happening next week. Toro Rosso plans a debut of a second STR2 at Mugello, Spyker will test a third F8-VII near to its Silverstone base and Ferrari are at the Fiorano track.

The next major test will then take place at Sepang from March 27 to 29 prior to this seasons Malaysian GP.