By Andrew Cutler
July 13 2007

The famous - or prehaps infamous is a more apt term - Spa weather would disrupt things as Scuderia Toro Rosso got to try out the legendary circut over the past three days, but too badly. There would be wet to contend with on all three mornings and during the afternoon of the second day.

Tonio would handle the driving duties on Day One, working on car set-up and tyre choices for when the team returns here later this season. He logged 63 laps with a best time of 1:49.179 before a transmission issue would cut his day short.

Champ Car ace Sebastien Bourdais took over behind the wheel for the next two days, as per the testing agreement that he had with the team from earlier this year. The main "work" for the team on day two was aero/downforce and brake tests. The weather provided an opportunity to try out Bridgestone's wet and "extreme" wet tyres. Bourdais put in 53 laps with a best time of 1:49.732 before being sidelined with an unspecified mechanical issue. Day three was the driest of the test, and the squad from faenza took advantage of the fact that the STR2 ran trouble-free to put in 91 laps. Bourdais best time would be a 1:48.585.

After all was said and done, Chief Engineer Laurent Mekies was fairly pleased with the amount of information that had been gathered. "The mixed weather means at least we tried the Bridgestone wets as well as comparing the two types of dry tyre. Not having been to Spa for two years and this circut having some unique characteristics, it is very useful to work on defining the areo configuration for this track, in addition to evaluating some new components and brake parts. With neither driver making any mistakes, we were able to do a high-milage over the three days, which is very good from a reliability point of view."