Button 'positive' after final tests

Formula One teams concluded their final tests this week before the summer ban with Jenson Button believing his BAR-Honda team are moving in the right direction.

Button spent two days testing aerodynamic revisions to his car as BAR look to close the gap on championship pacesetters Renault and McLaren.

He completed over 180 laps and was pleased with the results despite tricky conditions, saying: “We have mostly concentrated on running an aerodynamic evaluation for my two-day programme.

“With the hot conditions and red flags it took longer to get through than expected, but all in all the test ended on a positive note.”

While BAR concentrated on getting more from their 2005 car, two of their rivals were looking to the future by testing next year’s engines.

Formula One’s engine regulations change dramatically at the end of the season, replacing three-litre V10 units with 2.4-litre V8 powerplants in a bid to reduce speeds.

Teams are already well down the road of developing those new engines and Toyota and BMW were able to put theirs to the test on track in Spain this week.

Frenchman Olivier Panis had the honour of turning Toyota’s first V8 laps and he was struck by the drop in power.

He said: “My first impression, not surprisingly, was that it was quite a bit slower than the V10. You notice that the acceleration is not as strong and that the g-forces in the corners are less.

“But when you consider that the engine has around 200bhp less than a V10, that is to be expected and will be the same for everyone. It even makes old men like me think about re-launching an F1 racing career.”

The rule change was brought about due to fears that increased speeds were putting drivers at risk.

World governing body the FIA felt limiting engine size would guarantee that recent drops in lap time would be halted and Panis’ first experience of a V8 engine suggests they were right.

He said: “On the final day I did a one minute 21.3 second lap, which compared to typical laps of around 1mins 18secs for the V10s. That’s very good for the engine’s first run because we weren’t operating it near its maximum potential.”