A Surprise fastest time today, from not only a team that is not expected, but from one of the new boys as well, Timo Glock put’s the Toyota on the top spot of the time sheets for the final day.

The surprising thing was not that he set the fastest time, but who he beat to take it. Timo piloting the TF108 set times that were two tenths of a second faster than Lewis in the MP4-23 and Fernando Alonso in the seemingly much improved Renault.

The conditions for the day were not ideal for testing, as it was light rain for the majority of the day, however the ex Jordan F1 and 2007 GP2 World Champion driver showed that he will certainly not miss the traction control systems, showing great skill, control and pace on a day that some struggled for pace. He did however show that it can be tricky, as he had a spin into the gravel just before lunch.

“I am pleased with our progress today, and I believe we have made some significant improvements to the new car. It is encouraging to see us end the day with the fastest lap and I think we made a step forward. Once again the car was extremely reliable and that allowed us to complete a lot of laps and gather plenty of information. This is a completely different car compared to the TF107 but it is a good step forward and we know what we need to work on to improve. I made a small mistake in the morning on the damp track when the rear wheels locked and I spun but it didn’t cost us much time. The team worked really hard this week to improve the car and I am happy.” - Timo Glock

Lewis Hamilton was also pushing the limit’s of the limited grip of the track, having two spins in the morning session and another again in the afternoon. The McLaren team said that they were taking advantage of the weather to test and improve the drivability of their package. The team were also conducting test’s on the FIA Approved ECU, with new codes and setting’s that if approved will be offered to all of the teams.

“We have now completed six full track days with two MP4-23’s” said Martin Whitmarsh, “and already clocked up approximately 4193km’s on our 2008 challenger, 1,000kms of which were covered yesterday alone, and we are only halfway through the third week in January. It has been an immensely productive start to our pre-season test program and is a strong motivation for the team to keep pushing. Although it is far too early in the development stage of the car to be predicting how competitive it will be, initial feedback from the drivers and the team has been positive and we have a huge amount of data on which to base the continuing development program around.”

Felipe Massa was the quickest of the Ferrari drivers, showing that his initial concern over the banning of traction control may not be as big a problem as he initially thought. The Ferrari team put another 173 laps onto the 2008 car, showing that there pre-season reliability concerns seem unfounded.

The two Red Bull cars that were out showed little sign’s of improved pace, with Webber actually going quicker in the RB3 ‘B’ than Coulthard was in the new RB4, however they have very little running on the new car, and were probably only doing shakedown runs.

The Super Aguri team will be hoping for improved fortunes though, as neither of their drivers got to drive in the last two days, the team identified an overheating issue with their ‘B’ spec car, and tried to fly parts over to cure the issue, however the plane also had technical issues and the part arrived too late for the team to run.

The BMW Sauber team who are testing at Valencia suffered extreme weather conditions (rain and high winds), and decided to concentrate their testing on systems checks, and long runs.

Most of the teams are staying on over the weekend, as testing continues at the Jerez circuit next week.

Unofficial Wednesday times from Jerez:
1. Timo Glock, Toyota, 1:19.779
2. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 1:20.099
3. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 1:20.363
4. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 1:20.407
5. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1:20.500
6. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 1:20.535
7. Kamui Kobayashi, Toyota, 1:20.577
8. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:20.646
9. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 1:20.758
10. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 1:21.705
11. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 1:22.275
12. David Coulthard, Red Bull, 1:22.581
13. Nico Hulkenberg, Williams, 1:24.023
14. Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso, 1:24.873

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