The Hinwil-based team has been the only outfit to test their car properly in January – as both the Portimao group testing and Ferrari's home testing at Mugello were affected by heavy rain – managing to record important data on slick tires, aerodynamic behavior and KERS unit on their F1.09 challenger all together.
Nevertheless, a BMW spokesman admitted that the reason why the team changed the location of their 2nd test of the year was the confirmation of dry and warm weather in Bahrain. Also, he revealed that Mario Theissen's team will concentrate solely on the performances of the F1.09 until the season opener in Australia.
“Particularly, the track temperatures are extremely important. They were too low in Europe during the last test, and we hope that they will be significantly higher in Bahrain. This is the basis to get valid tyre data for the first races, which will all take place in hot conditions,” said the spokesman.
The testing at Bahrain will get under way next Tuesday, January 10th, and will last until Friday the same week. A second testing session is scheduled for January 16th to 19th as reported by local newspaper Gulf Daily News. For both Ferrari and Toyota – should they remain the only teams to choose Bahrain over Jerez – it would be their first test on dry track this year.
Williams F1 have already confirmed they will not be traveling to Bahrain for testing this year in an effort to reduce costs ahead of the 2009 season.
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