Trulli took over from Kamui Kobayashi and resumed the programme started by him on Wednesday, focusing on developing the new rear end and working with the 2008 standard ECU for the first time.
"It was a positive day and it was good to be back in the car," said the Italian. "We ran through all our planned programme running with the 2008 ECU and rear end of the car. This was the first time I have driven with the 2008 standard ECU but of course I have a lot of experience of driving without traction control. The main task was to put in a lot of mileage which have successfully done today. We concentrated on finding new things with the set-up and improving the general ECU settings. All in all it was quite a good day."
Toyota's senior chassis general manager, Pascal Vasselon was also content, even if Glock was delayed slightly in the other car due to a hydraulic issue: "Again we completed a lot of work today, although Timo did suffer a delay in the morning while a hydraulic issue was repaired," Vasselon confirmed.
"It was really interesting to run the slick tyres on Timo's car and we got a lot of information which will help us to adjust to the change in 2009. The difference between slicks and the current grooved tyres is quite big and the car behaves differently. Obviously there is more grip without the grooves and lap times are faster, which we expected, but it was interesting to note that the car balance and handling stays good with the slick tyres when we thought there could be difficulties.
"Jarno put in a hard day's work and we have made more progress with the 2008 ECU so now we look forward to concluding the year's testing tomorrow."
After that it was left to the
Super Aguri's and
Force India cars to bring up the rear, the former 16th and 18th, with Luca Filippi and
Takuma Sato, while Vitantonio Liuzzi and
Ralf Schumacher tried out for the former Spyker/Midland/Jordan team.
