• Day four team round-up

Dry test leaves drivers upbeat

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A dry final day of testing at Jerez gave the teams a chance to make more progress with the development of their cars. Scroll down for a round-up of the drivers' thoughts on how the session went.

The drivers enjoyed a dry track on the final day of testing in Jerez © Getty Images

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• Drivers:
• Jaime Alguersuari
• |
• Kamui Kobayashi
• |
• Robert Kubica
• |
• Jarno Trulli
• |
• Mark Webber

• Teams:
• Alfa Romeo
• |
• Red Bull
• |
• Renault
• |
• Team Lotus
• |
• Toro Rosso

• Picture Gallery:
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Force India
Tonio Liuzzi: "Today was a really productive day for us. We covered 80 laps without any issues and got through our programme of test items for this week. Everything went pretty well - we worked on understanding the car's performance with different fuel loads and ran through some set up changes and the car is responding well. We still need to work on the tyres over the longer runs and will continue this at the next test in Barcelona. Overall I think we can be very satisfied with how this test has gone and can look forward to another good test next week."

Chief race engineer Dominic Harlow: "A good day to finish the eight days of testing in Jerez. Tonio completed a broad programme of set up tests and we are satisfied with what was learned. We've made good progress this week, having tidied up some reliability issues, and developed our set up options with the VJM03. The team has begun its race preparation in earnest and we will head to Barcelona to continue this work over the final test before the first race of 2010."

Lotus
Jarno Trulli: "It was a very positive day. I'm really happy about my first day testing with Lotus Racing and I was very lucky to have everything right on the car today with no major issues. We were able to put a lot of mileage on the car and get a lot of information out of it. I had the chance to start developing a real feel for the car and it's good to be here."

Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne: "An excellent day today, concentrating on reliability and race pace. 141 laps from Jarno is a great effort when you consider it's his first day driving this year and also a great effort from the team who worked all night to get the car prepared. Overall it's been a very encouraging four days. The main aim of the test was reliability and over the last two days of dry running we have found some directions in set up that will enable us to concentrate on the pace of the car in Barcelona."

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg: "We've had a very positive day today and were able to complete a lot of valuable mileage which is a great way to end the tests here in Jerez. We've made some good progress on our set up comparisons and learnt a lot which will be useful to prepare for the final test in Barcelona. Being able to get the laps in dry conditions has been very helpful for me to get used to the car and systems."

Team principal Ross Brawn: "The past two weeks in Jerez have seen an intensive period of testing for the Mercedes team and it is very pleasing to have ended the test programme with two days of very valuable dry running for Nico and Michael. Although the conditions haven't been ideal over the two tests, we have been able to make good progress on the set up of the car and completed a number of our systems evaluations. We still have a great deal of work ahead of us in Barcelona next week but overall we're looking in good shape for the start of the season."

Red Bull
Mark Webber said: "The weather was a lot kinder to us on the last two days and we learned a hell of a lot, no question about it. We did a lot of stuff with Renault and also learned about the aerodynamics and the chassis - there were lots of things we kept throwing into the fire and we kept learning, so that was good. We need a nice clear run in Barcelona and a little more reliability there and we're ready to go racing."

Head of race engineering Ian Morgan: "It was frustrating a test with the wet weather over the first two days, but having two dry days at the end was good and enabled us to get some good mileage on the car. At next week's test in Barcelona we will concentrate on our final preparations before Bahrain, including some race simulations."

Renault
Robert Kubica: "It was a good day and we tried a lot of different things, which has given us lots of useful information. To begin with we did some evaluation with different fuel loads to check the balance of the car and then in the afternoon we did long runs with heavy fuel to simulate a race distance. We completed most of the programme and I was pretty happy with the car."

Alan Permane, Chief Engineer: "Another solid day of work as we made the most of the good weather. We ran the car with varying fuel loads this morning to see how it reacted and we were pleased with the results. Then we attempted a race simulation and, although it was interrupted, we still managed to cover the required number of laps. Later in the afternoon we concentrated on some set-up work and found a good direction with the car."

Sauber
Kamui Kobayashi: "I'm really happy with our final day of testing in Jerez. It was a perfect day for us. The conditions were ideal and the car ran trouble-free, so we were able to complete 117 laps and gather a lot of data. We made some progress with the set up of the car. We will now analyse the data and draw the relevant conclusions for the next test in Barcelona."

Test engineer Thomas Hunsicker: "After a difficult day yesterday, I'm really pleased with what we achieved today. We worked on the set up of the car, tested different tyre compounds and did some aerodynamic evaluations. Thanks to the good conditions and the reliability of the car, we were able to complete our overall testing programme for Jerez."

Toro Rosso
Jaime Alguersuari: "These past two days in the car have been successful and it was good that the weather improved, so I could manage to drive in the dry. The most important aspect is that the car ran reliably, which was our main target here in Jerez. It puts us in good shape to tackle the final test in Barcelona."

Chief engineer, Laurent Mekies: "Even with the rain interrupting our programme this week, it has been quite a useful test working on both dry and wet weather basic set up. However, there is still a fair amount of work to do before the first race in Bahrain and we hope to get a lot more testing miles under our belt in Barcelona next week."

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