Williams is unlikely to follow BMW-Sauber’s lead in using a dedicated ‘third’ driver in Friday tests next year.
That is the revelation of Alex Wurz, who is moving from the Grove based team’s test cockpit to race in 2007.
The 32-year-old Austrian said that the scrapping of third cars in free practice next year means that the regular ‘Friday’ driver – BMW’s Sebastian Vettel aside – is now a thing of the past.
“Probably only the teams who want to ‘sell’ the third seat will still use a test driver on Fridays,” Wurz told motorline.cc.
And with Williams signing Narain Karthikeyan and Kazuki Nakajima as test drivers for 2007, Wurz added: “I don’t think Williams will be one of those teams.”
He said the three hours of free testing on grand prix Fridays will be ‘very useful’ for each team’s two race drivers.
And Wurz insisted: “I would be very surprised if any top team uses a third driver.”
GMMF1
DailyF1News.com
