Following on from his solid performance in Istanbul,
Mark Webber ended the day in fourth place for
Red Bull Racing on his only scheduled day of running for the team this weekend. The Australian spent the day running with high downforce settings on the RB4 while evaluating aerodynamic components and working on mechanical set-up. He also tried both the soft and super soft tyre that will be available in Monte Carlo despite the fact that teams would normally run on harder rubber at Ricard.
On his first run in the new STR3,
Sebastian Vettel was fifth for the sister Toro Rosso team as it prepares to debut the car in Monaco. With a faulty timing transmitter being the only real issue on the day, the youngster worked through a series of new car checks including set-up and car balance while working with both the soft and super soft
Bridgestone rubber.
Williams became the latest team to try a ‘shark-fin' engine cover on its car, following in the footsteps of Red Bull and
Renault. With
Nico Rosberg at the wheel, the new look car completed more laps than any other on track; the German managing 154 laps en-route to the sixth fastest time.
Alex Wurz was seventh for
Honda while
Timo Glock posted the eighth fastest time for
Toyota,with the German running a programme similar to the other nine drivers on track and focused mainly on the Monaco event. After trying a variety of different set-ups and aerodynamic configurations, Glock then spent time getting used to the Monaco-spec Bridgestone tyres and declared himself happy with the day.
"The morning session was reasonable and then in the afternoon the track conditions improved quite a lot,” he said. “It was a normal test day making Monaco preparations with the only problem being some big changes we made over the lunch break which took a bit longer than expected and cost us some track time. It was the first time I have run the car in such high-downforce configuration. I was quite happy with it but we still need to work a little to improve the traction. Overall though, the car felt pretty good."
