Formula 1 News

2010 Canadian GP, practice: Team quotes 

Nick Wirth: “We had an unfortunate assembly error today that caused Lucas to stop on circuit and sit out P1, which was very frustrating for him and the team. The track was incredibly dirty to start with and that didn’t suit the low-downforce package that we brought here, but the circuit got a bit better after some cars ran, and even without our race engines it was clear that our straight-line speeds were more competitive than they have been on other Fridays. Nevertheless, we did some key tests specifically for the race, so now we’ll do our usual Friday night analysis and I’m sure we’ll have a stronger Saturday.”

Ross Brawn: “We’re reasonably happy with where we are today in terms of performance and were able to achieve some good longer runs this afternoon in preparation for the race. The key consideration for the weekend looks to be the tyre strategies and managing the levels of graining, particularly on the options and to a lesser extent the prime, as was evident from the struggles faced by most of the teams this afternoon. With the predicted weather conditions for the weekend, this could all change, but for now we are in a decent position and looking forward to qualifying tomorrow.”

Norbert Haug: “We had quite a constructive first day today and are all working hard to improve our pace. If it stays dry, the key issue will be how to use the tyres, particularly the softer options, in the best possible way. We saw long runs from various teams today where lap times varied up to five seconds or more through the runs. Having said that, there will be more grip tomorrow and on Sunday, of course only if it stays dry, and the tyre situation could change. The forecast predicts rain for the weekend, so it will be interesting to see who can do the best job if that is the case. Our experience and performance in the rain has been reasonable at the wet qualifying and races that we have had so far this season.”

Sam Michael: “We tested new aero components today and everything worked well, so all of these will all be carried forward for the race for both cars. Unfortunately we had a problem with the hydraulics on Ruben’s car, the exact cause of which we have not yet determined. This was quite costly, losing almost half of the second practice session this afternoon and we will be relying on his experience to catch up. In summary, it looks like tyre management will be the key to this weekend.”

Stefano Domenicali: “This weekend has got off on the right foot for us, as we have worked well and shown that we are more competitive than in Turkey two weeks ago. Having said that, we are well aware that Friday’s times do not mean much because there are so many unknown factors that have an influence on them. Now we face an afternoon and a night of work analysing all the data we have gathered. Then, starting with tomorrow’s qualifying we will try and confirm the step forward that we have glimpsed today.”

Chris Dyer: “As is always the case on a Friday, we had a packed work programme, with various new elements to experiment with, in addition to the normal work of fine tuning the set-up and comparing the two types of tyre that Bridgestone has brought here. There were a few very minor problems that made the day more complicated, but all the same, we managed to get through the planned schedule. From what we have seen today, the tyres seem to work well over a short distance, while on the longer runs the softer compound appears to degrade very quickly, a situation which seems to be affecting everyone, not just us: we will see how the track conditions evolve tomorrow. This circuit is very tough on brakes: from our point of view, the situation seems to be under control.”

Dominic Harlow: “We’re satisfied with what was acheived today. The track was very dirty to start with, but things gradually improved. Aside from one glitch this morning on Adrian’s car the programmes were well executed. Free Practice two’s tyre evaluations were interesting and there’s certainly plenty to think about for the race. Our performance seems reasonable, and with one or two improvements that we can make for tomorrow I think we can be competitive in qualifying and on Sunday.”

Alan Permane: “The track began the day very dirty and slippery. It did improve, but not enough to make us happy and comfortable with the car. The cars are sliding about and that’s made even more difficult by the fact that we are running with low downforce. The new wing package is performing as expected. We did a downforce test and compared our Montreal package against our previous lowest downforce wings and overall we’re happy with our Montreal wings. I’m pretty sure we will run them for the rest of the weekend. We ran both tyre compounds (medium and supersoft) this afternoon. It’s difficult to say which one is better in terms of lap time and we still need to look over the data to determine which one we will favour. We will continue monitoring this during final practice tomorrow morning as the track evolves further and more rubber is laid down. At the moment we’re predicting a dry day tomorrow and rain on Sunday afternoon – probably after the race, but the forecast can change very quickly here so we will keep a close eye on the weather radar.”

Colin Kolles: “It was a good first day for our team in Canada. As expected, the track had a poor grip level in the beginning. Many drivers had to struggle with that and went off the line. Like the other teams, we were fighting with graining on the rear tyres. But we could run a lot today and our drivers got quicker with every lap they did. We could get a lot of information out of the sessions and our drivers got as much track time as possible.”

Martin Whitmarsh: “The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a uniquely challenging track, which never fails to throw up tricky conditions, abnormal circumstances and unpredictable outcomes. This morning, we were able quickly to establish a competitive baseline with both cars. This afternoon, however, we found it difficult to refine that advantage, particularly when we switched from Prime to Option tyres. In so doing, we lost not only balance but also found that the Options were graining extremely quickly. Nonetheless, we’ve amassed a significant amount of data from today’s running – and our task now is therefore to sit down and sift through it with absolute thoroughness in order to hit the ground running tomorrow morning. We’re still convinced that our basic package should be quick around here – it’s just a matter of adapting it to suit the prevailing weather and circuit conditions, which today proved tougher than we’d initially anticipated.”

Mike Gascoyne: “It was difficult today – a couple of reliability problems curtailed Jarno’s running, but with Heikki we completed everything we wanted to, so that’s a plus. The tyre performance is always difficult on the first day here, but especially so today, so we’ll have to see how that develops tomorrow – it could be interesting. Overall, Heikki’s performance was good, but apologies to Jarno for the issues – despite those, I’m sure we can get both cars up where we want them tomorrow.”

Tony Fernandes: “It was obviously a bit of a tough session out there, a dirty track and a couple of issues for Jarno, but we still showed we keep picking up speed, finishing FP2 just over three seconds off the outright pace. Both Jarno and Heikki are upbeat, and the main aim now is to bring both cars home on Sunday – if we do that I’ll be very happy.”

Laurent Mekies: “We ran a usual Friday programme, completing everything on the job list, with much of the focus on getting used to the low level of downforce and to compare the two types of tyre compound. I think we are heading into a very interesting weekend, because the track seems to be harder on the tyres than we had initially expected, so we have seen everyone in the field having quite high tyre degradation, which should make for a good race. We also evaluated different levels of downforce. Everything went smoothly and now we must work on improving the car balance for tomorrow.”

James Key: “The conditions were very difficult to start with this morning. It was a case of running the car in the medium-downforce configuration. Kamui had to learn the circuit today, and for Pedro it was about getting a feeling for the car with the lower downforce level. We are lacking general grip at the moment. When it’s there, the car looks reasonable, when it’s not it turns into a difficult situation. We need to look into how we can maximise the general grip of the car by not only analysing where we are with the aero setting, but mechanically as well and see if we can improve the car over one lap. The race pace looks reasonable, but we have to see how the tyres are performing. So we have some work to do.”