The good weather continued at Barcelona for the last day of official winter testing before the start of the 2008 Formula 1 season. Panasonic Toyota Racing used the time available to carry out final preparations for the Australian Grand Prix, now just over a fortnight away.

Race drivers Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock worked on fine-tuning set-ups and finishing off their groundwork for the first race. Jarno even set the fastest time of the day during a qualifying run while the track was at its best in the morning. He finished with 83 laps to his credit.

“That was another positive day,” he said. “We made some progress in understanding the car and the set-up. Even though this is only a test, it’s nice to see the mechanics and the guys smiling because today’s times are good motivation. There is still room for improvement but this shows the team has done a good job over the winter tests. Of course we won’t know the real running order until Melbourne but I’m quite confident for the season. It’s definitely looking much better than last year so I’m happy for the team.”

Meanwhile, teammate Timo Glock managed 65 laps after a more disrupted day….

“Today was a frustrating day for me,” he said. “I didn’t find a way to set up the car to my driving style and the pace suffered as a result. It’s strange that on the first morning we had okay pace then it’s been dropping off during the week. Perhaps the problem is the hard tyre but we will have to analyse all the data. At the moment it doesn’t bode well for Australia but we have a couple of weeks to turn things around.”

The next time Toyota will be on track with the rest of the F1 grid will be in Melbourne for Friday practice on March 14.