To see the day three testing times in full, click here
After two days spent fine-tuning set-ups for the Monaco Grand Prix in a week's time, the heavens opened on the third and final day of testing at Paul Ricard, as teams turned their focus to the altogether different type of set-up required for the Canadian Grand Prix a fortnight later.
The layout of the southern French track was altered to simulate the lower downforce, heavy-braking demands of the long straights, chicanes and hairpins of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, which the
Formula 1 circus will visit on 8 June. The heavy rain that fell shortly after the morning's installation laps, however, disrupted running, with pace-setter
Jarno Trulli completing just 26 laps in his
Toyota, compared to the marathon 120 he had run the previous day in dry conditions.
The Italian nevertheless encountered no problems other than the adverse weather, and was able to take advantage of the rain by testing out both the wet and extreme wet
Bridgestone Potenza tyres, before a downpour around lunchtime soaked the track and rendered further testing impossible.
“With the first two days of this week's test devoted to Monaco preparations, we had scheduled an intensive programme today,” the 33-year-old explained. “Montreal is a very different type of circuit, and we wanted to try out different aerodynamic and mechanical solutions.
“You run less downforce in Montreal compared to Monaco, so the car set-up is very different and we had planned a lot of work on this. It was frustrating that the rain came early in the day and meant that we could not collect any dry data.”
“We were planning a full day concentrating on Montreal-specific aerodynamic and mechanical set-ups,” added the Japanese outfit's test team manager Gerd Pfeiffer, “but unfortunately the weather spoiled that.
