Vallelunga hosted Alfa Romeo and BMW teams for a three-day test. From Friday to Sunday Alfa Romeo Racing, BMW Team Germany and BMW Team Italy-Spain covered a great deal of laps around the circuit located near to Rome.
The Alfa Romeo team ran a single 156 car. Brazilian youngster Augusto Farfus – who had claimed his first WTCC victory in Macau on last November – took the wheel in the first two days and was then replaced by Gianni Morbidelli on the third one. The former F1 Italian driver is currently negotiating with Alfa Romeo to join the team in the 2006 FIA WTCC campaign.
BMW Team Germany and BMW Team Italy-Spain tested two brand new 320is E90 machines each. Dirk and Jörg Müller were driving the German team’s cars, with the former focusing on suspension and aerodynamics whereas the latter was charged to test the 4-cylinder engine’s latest step. “It looks like the new car has a lot of potential. It is more precise compared to last year’s model. It is quite an interesting challenge for us, because we are developing the WTCC version from scratch, whereas the S2000 E46 car was developed starting from the Super Production version,” said Jörg.
BMW Team Italy-Spain lined-up Alessandro Zanardi in their first car and alternated two young Spaniards – Marcel Costa and Ander Vilariño – in the second one. In the next days the team will choose Zanardi’s new team-mate among the two of them.