Friday, January 23, 2009

Final day at Algarve is a washout

Thursday 22nd January 2009

Heavy rain showers throughout Thursday saw the final day of testing at the Algarve circuit washed-out.

Three of the five F1 teams present at the track, Toro Rosso, Williams and Toyota, all ventured out during the first half an hour of running this morning, however, they were soon heading back to their respective garages due to the rain.

33 minutes into the day's action and the session was red-flagged due to the poor weather conditions restricting the medical helicopter from being able to take off.

Under F1 regulations the helicopter has to be able to fly in order for the drivers to be allowed out on the track.

And although there were hopes of the action getting underway later in the day it didn't pan out that way due to the adverse conditions.

As such the Portuguese test came to a premature end at 16:15 local time with no lap times being set and with two teams, McLaren and Renault, not getting any running under their belts.

'Testing today in Portugal was a complete washout with heavy rain all day. As such we had no further running with the FW31,' said Williams tech director Sam Michael.

Gallery of pictures are here.

Source : Planet F1

No comments: