By Andrew Cutler
March 1 2007

The three day test at Bahrain saw steady progress for Scuderia Toro Rosso as they figure out how best to make the STR2 into a competetative car. They capped the session off today with their longest run and the best lap time yet, and were only 1.511 seconds off of the chart-topping Ferrari effort. Day one - Tuesday - saw Scott Speed handling the driving duties, logging 44 laps and mired at the bottom of the time charts with a best lap at 1:34.057. On Wednesday, Vitantonio Liuzzi took over and got the car up to the middle of the time charts with a lap at 1:32.359, but technical gremlins kept him from participating in the afternoon running, meaning that he only logged 47 laps for the day. Thurday it was time for Scott once again. This time STR was able to log a hefty 125 laps, nearly three times as many as either of the prior two days. Even more impressive, Scott's best lap was a 1:31.500, just over 1.5 seconds off of Felipe Massa's top time - the best of the field for the entire session - of 1:29.989.

While there is still plenty for the team to do before the first GP weekend gets here in two weeks (the second car still has to be completed and tested), Chief Engineer Laurent Mekies is is pleased with the progress that was made to this point. “Last week was a shakedown for us really and every day, more and more parts have arrived here from the factory, which have helped us to improve reliability and performance. It really kept our guys busy and they worked very hard. Looking at today’s performance especially, with a respectable lap time and 125 laps, it is clear we are working in the right direction, even if there is a lot to do.”