Sebastian Vettel continued to set the pace for Toro Rosso as the
Formula 1 group test at the
Jerez circuit in Spain moved into its second day.
The young German had been fastest during the opening day of the test on Tuesday but managed to improve his time to dip below the 1min 19secs marker; his best time if 1min 18.843secs being two-tenths of a second quicker than anyone else.
Vettel spent his day focusing on 2009 which meant he worked solely with slick
Bridgestone tyres on his STR3 while the majority of teams mixed running between preparing for next season and getting ready for the upcoming races.
"I spent the whole time on the 2009 spec slick tyres and the biggest difference you notice is in the slow corners, where you feel more mechanical grip," he said. "However, the low downforce configuration in line with next year's rules means you have a lack of aero which you feel on the high speed sections, but it is balanced out by more grip from the tyres. We tried two types of tyre and it was an interesting experiment, from which we got loads of data to study."
Pedro de la Rosa was second quickest for
McLaren as he took over behind the wheel from fellow test driver Gary Paffett and worked on evaluation of the 2009 slick tyre as well as the new aerodynamic package on the car.
Defending champion
Kimi Raikkonen hit the track for the first time this week for
Ferrari and posted the third fastest time, three-tenths of a second slower than de la Rosa. The Finn focused his attention on trying out various different set-ups on the F2008 ahead of the upcoming races and completed 76 laps during the course of the day.
