BMW Testing – Monza – Day 3
It has been quite a day today at Monza for the third and final part
of the Schnitzer BMW test – writes Gabriele Tosi.
The
temperature didn’t rise above minus 2 degrees, and the snow
arrived at 11.30 this morning, cutting the test short.
The final surprise of
this three day test was Pedro Lamy (out of job after the death of
the V8 Star Series) completing a good number of laps in last year’s
M3 GTR.
Lamy was setting times
between 1:50 and 1:53, which seemed to be the mark for this test,
in this weather.
Then Dirk Muller
tested the 2004 GTR, commenting that he always seems to have bad
luck with this car: “I haven’t tested it enough and
every time some problems strike me…” Apparently the
grip drops away dramatically when the track is this cold. Muller
reckoned it wouldn’t be much fun next week, for the ETCC /
FIA GT test at Monza (if it stays this cold).

The new car is basically
the same as last year’s. Jorg Muller wasn’t a fan of
the traction control. “It kills my style of driving –
but in these conditions it helps prevent you having an accident.
“I
am satisfied with the amount of work we got through with the 320
Touring: the target was to make sure everything was working perfectly:
the weather didn’t help us, and there was no chance to complete
any long runs.”
“We had too many
drivers for the test! Ralf, Gerhard, Pedro…but anyway I did
lots of work in the 320 Touring.”
Hopefully the weather
will improve next week...
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