Pedro de la Rosa was quickest on the final day of
F1 testing at the
Jerez de la Frontera circuit in the extreme south of Spain on Friday.
The Spaniard posted a best time of 1 minute 18.992 seconds and thanks to improved weather conditions, he did 90 tours in total. He spent the day focusing on aero development for the upcoming races as well as continuing with
McLaren's KERS evaluation programme.
Nick Heidfeld was again 'best of the rest', three tenths slower on a 1m 19.250s. He did 98 laps and worked exclusively on preparations for the forthcoming races in Asia and South America.
"Today I concentrated on the mechanical and aerodynamic development of the car and we found some promising solutions to improve the set-up of the car," he reflected.
Lucas di Grassi meanwhile was third, three hundredths off Heidfeld in his Renault R28. The Brazilian had a busy day and did over 100 laps as the team tried to make up for some of the lost time after rain restricted running on day 3.
"It was another hot day, but it was much better than yesterday and we were able to do lots of laps," he stated. "I felt even more comfortable with the car and we have definitely improved it a lot during the week.
"We worked on lots of different things, including some set-up work and new tyre runs in the morning, and in the afternoon we evaluated some parts to be used in the last few races."
"It was a better day for Lucas and the team and nice to give Lucas another full day of running," added
Renault's chief test engineer, Christian Silk. "He's done a very good job for us this week and was competitive throughout the day with consistent lap times and gave the team good feedback.
"The car ran well today giving us lots of results and data, which will be useful for the forthcoming races and for next year."
Further down the order, Italian GP winner and yesterday's pace setter
Sebastian Vettel was fourth, having reverted back to the Toro Rosso fold.
The German did 93 laps and was almost half a second up on Sebastien Buemi, who was fifth for
Red Bull's 'A' team in the Renault-powered RB4.
![Pedro de la Rosa tests the new McLaren-Mercedes MP4-23 at Jerez. January 9 2008 [Pic credit: McLaren-Mercedes]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/402143.jpg)
