F1: Pre-race test makes weekend easier for Williams.

[Rory Phoulorie]

Williams technical director Sam Michael believes that this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix will provide further proof of the pecking order in Formula One this season, as the decision to stage a group test at Sepang last week will have removed a degree of unpredictability from the proceedings.

With teams previously having to head to Kuala Lumpur with little time to develop their cars from the opening round, the Malaysian Grand Prix often had the opportunity to throw up a surprise or two, especially as few would have had the chance to try their machines in the unique heat and humidity of Sepang, but four days of running in the build-up to the 2007 event will have given the teams a lot of useful data.

"A lot of the data and sign-offs that the engineers normally have to rush through during the practice sessions are already done," Michael confirmed, "Brakes, cooling and tyres have all been measured and we now have a good direction for the race. As such, we will be able to spend most of practice working on car set-up and re-checking the balance on the two Bridgestone Potenza tyre compounds because the circuit's grip levels will vary from the test.

"After the first race in Melbourne, the initial picture of where the true team order lies is starting to form, but it will take another few races to settle, and can obviously change over the season if one team makes a much bigger gain than another. At the test last week, we worked hard on set-up and getting more performance out of the
FW29. We made some progress, but the real measure will be how we fare over the race weekend."

The Malaysian round is typically referred to as the toughest of the year by drivers forced to spend up to two hours in the cockpit, in sweltering heat, on race day, but extreme sports fan Alex Wurz is looking forward to the chance to compete there again.

"This is the race where a disciplined training programme really pays off," the Austrian insisted, "In last week's test, I covered over 200 laps in two days, which was a good test for me and for the reliability of the car in such extreme conditions. The race simulation we did also went very well, but we won't see the true performance of the teams until the race weekend.

"The toughest part of the race for the majority of the drivers will be the heat, but Malaysia is a very cool race track. It has quite a difficult corner section, which I've always enjoyed ever since I first drove on this track. It is very challenging to get the set-up right for it."

Team-mate Nico Rosberg returns to Sepang with the memory of putting the unloved FW28 onto the second row in only his second race weekend in 2006.

"It is a good circuit from a driver's perspective," he said, "The layout has a bit of everything, with plenty of fast and slow corners. The surface is quite bumpy, which also gives it an extra dimension, but the most challenging aspect is obviously the heat and humidity. I'm well prepared though."

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