The Scuderia Toro Rosso crew made the Cosworth engine shutdown at the end of Friday's final day of testing last considerably longer than usual, as the last day in Jerez also signalled the final day of testing for 2006 and therefore the last day a Scuderia Toro Rosso car will run in anger powered by the last V10 to race in Formula One to date. The final official F1 test of the year was also notable for Toro Rosso as they invited triple Champ Car series champion Sébastien Bourdais to take part.

There were other unusual features about the day, in that Tonio Liuzzi was the quickest of the Toro Rosso Rosso drivers, except that he set his time in a Red Bull Racing car, as the Red Bull satellite team loaned him out for the day. Running on all three days was guest tester and reigning Champ Car Champ, Sébastien Bourdais. Of the three drivers to run in the STR-1 in Jerez the Frenchman actually set the fastest time. Bourdais is not exactly an F1 rookie, although, when he arrived in Jerez on Tuesday, it was exactly four years to the day since he had lasted tested a Formula 1 car, here in Jerez in fact. (After shooting into the public eye by winning the International F3000 Championship in 2002, Bourdais was offered test drivers with the Renault and Arrows teams).
 

On Thursday, a mechanical failure saw Scott Speed leave the track and although nothing was broken, his hand hurt enough for him to withdraw from today's testing after a handful of laps. Luckily, after two days acclimatising himself Sebastien was up to speed and able to complete Toro Rosso's final day's programme.

"On the technical front we were again concentrating on a familiarisation programme with the Bridgestone Potenza tyres," explained Scuderia Toro Rosso Chief Engineer Laurent Mekies. "They were the same as those we tried last week. The stable weather meant we were also able to try major changes to car set-up with a view to understanding how these were affected by tyres, while also evaluating new brake materials," he added.