Panasonic Toyota Racing completed the first part of its double-header test at the Bahrain International Circuit on Saturday where test driver Franck Montagny replaced Ralf Schumacher in the cockpit and joined Jarno Trulli on track as the team made more progress on fine-tuning the TF107.

Franck’s program required several long runs as he looked to complete at least a race distance while Jarno focused on set-up options with the new aerodynamic package. Jarno’s progress was interrupted by gearbox control issues during the morning and he caused a red flag at midday when he stopped on the circuit, however he managed get back out on track after lunch to complete a lot of mileage overall.

“The positive thing from today was that we did a lot of miles, almost twice a race distance and this should be very helpful to us. Unfortunately my lap times were not that good but that was more because we were concentrating on long runs rather than qualifying simulations. It has been a reasonable day and the laps I did helped us evaluate several things on the car, including our new aero package.”

Meanwhile, Franck racked up the laps before lunch thanks to some trouble-free running and he managed more than a race distance in the morning alone and was busy in the afternoon gathering data which the team will now study before testing resumes in Bahrain on Tuesday, with Jarno and Franck again doing the driving.

“It was an interesting day because both of the cars did over a hundred laps,” Franck said. “This morning we were able to do a race distance with no problems. Unfortunately my fastest lap time was not great so that was disappointing but step by step we will find that. It was more important that we completed our programme and did a race distance on the new gearbox. We also worked on some aero things in the afternoon and now we will see how that all comes together next week.”

 “We wrapped up the first part of the Bahrain test in a positive way, putting a lot of miles on both cars without major problems,” added Dieter Gass, Chief Engineer Race and Test. “We had a planned engine and gearbox change over lunchtime on Franck’s car. That took a bit more time than we expected but nevertheless he completed the programme as planned which was good. Jarno also went through our programme and found some interesting bits in terms of the set-up. We will now have to analyse the work we have done this week and focus a little bit more on performance during the next test.”