"It's good to be back in the car again after the long break since Brazil,” he said. “I have been working on my training in preparation as the hard work for our 2007 season starts here. It's good to be working with
Bridgestone again and we've had a pretty good start to our new relationship. I think we have a decent understanding of how we can begin to maximise the tyres with our car and obviously the team has two more tests in
Jerez to continue this development. All in all, a good start to our winter campaign."
With Olivier Panis and Kamui Kobayashi having completed the opening day of its test session on Wednesday,
Toyota reverted to its race drivers for day two of a three day programme as
Ralf Schumacher and
Jarno Trulli got back behind the wheel for the first time since the season ending Brazilian Grand Prix. Having already been a team using Bridgestone tyres, Schumacher was able to work through a programme focused on different car set-ups and testing various weight distributions on the TF106 – while also completed some tyre work over the course of the day.
"I have enjoyed the break from driving but it was good to be back behind the wheel today,” he said. “We have really started preparing for next season now, especially in terms of the tyres. These new tyres have less grip as they are of a different construction. But they are good to drive on and they make the car a bit easier to handle. They are a little bit slower but a bit more sliding is possible so that makes it more fun and they are also a little bit easier on the limit. It's too early to say for sure but they seem all right."
Behind Schumacher,
Renault test driver Nelson Piquet was eighth, the Brazilian spending his day working through a Bridgestone tyre testing programme having passed on testing of the new gearbox to Kovalainen. Piquet completed just short of 100 laps and was just over a second shy of the fastest lap.
