Formula 1 News

2010 German GP, practice: Driver quotes 

Sebastian Vettel: “The conditions were not easy today, they were quite changeable, which made judging lap times difficult, but we got some dry running in the afternoon which was important. I think it’s looking quite good and the car feels good, especially in the last section. Ferrari looked extremely competitive; McLaren had a difficult day with only one car for the majority of running, but they will come back and be up there. I did a bit of rallying in P2 when I lost the rear going into the Stadium section and had to find my way through the gravel, but fortunately I could save the car and there was no problem.”

Mark Webber: “It wasn’t the easiest day for everyone – the track conditions were pretty tricky, so selecting the right tyres at the right time wasn’t straightforward, but we got some good information out of P2 when the track was pretty dry. We were also able to learn how both types of wet tyre worked here, so we evaluated the car in almost all conditions today. The car felt good, but we’ve got some work to do tonight. Ferrari look strong and I’m looking forward to the race.”

Lewis Hamilton: “Obviously, I damaged the car quite heavily this morning. It was very slippery and I hit the limiter coming out of Turn Three, shifted gear, which spun the wheels, and had an oversteer moment. Itried to correct it and that put me onto the grass, where I was just a passenger. The accident took all four corners off the car, so I was a little bit upset with myself. The guys work so hard during the week to get the car ready, and then you get to the track, do a few laps, and total the car, which isn’t great. It was a huge amount of work for the guys, too, but they’ve just been phenomenal. It was positive to get back out there and overcome the difficulties I had in the morning. We missed the afternoon’s rain too, which was good. Now I have a decent idea of where the car is, so hopefully we can make some positive set-up changes overnight. The new blown diffuser still isn’t perfect – it’s not something you can just put on the car and drive with the same balance that you had before; you’ve got to alter the balance, and modify your driving style. We’re still working on it, but there’s potential there.”

Jenson Button: “This morning was useful, because there’s a possibility of more rain tomorrow. But we didn’t have a very good set-up for P1 in the wet – we changed the car over lunch, and I was much happier with the balance this afternoon. As always, we have to do things to make the car better. The long-run pace is pretty reasonable – I think we were expecting more issues with graining on the Option, but it didn’t seem to be a big issue. Hopefully, tomorrow’s morning session will be dry so we can focus on some useful set-up work. Obviously, Lewis had a problem this morning, so I had a busy afternoon running through our long-run programme in P2.The new floor appears to be working well. We still need to look at the data to see how much of an improvement it’s giving us, but there’s no negative to it, which is great.”

Fairuz Fauzy: “First of all I was very happy to be back in the car. The conditions weren’t great, but that was the same for everyone, so we all had to deal with the fact it was pouring with rain, and then started drying out, then raining again. But I found myself getting more comfortable with every lap. Once I’d got the tyre temperatures up I could push, and the car was reliable throughout, so we got through the programme, which is obviously what we set out to do. I think I could have gone quicker still, but I’m pleased with my input today and can’t wait to get back in the car again!”

Jarno Trulli: “It was a positive day today. We put in a lot of laps in both sessions and I think the car is behaving pretty well here. The track’s improved throughout the day and after getting a decent amount of running in I’m confident we can deliver a good result tomorrow.”

Heikki Kovalainen: “The main thing today is that we have had good reliability all day, but it was a bit disappointing as I couldn’t find a good balance, so we’ve got work to do on that tomorrow.”

Sebastien Buemi: “The morning session went well, as the driver can make more of a difference in the wet conditions and I was P7, looking competitive, but in the dry, we need to find a better set-up. Therefore, we need to work hard now, analysing the data to try and improve the car for tomorrow. We had some new elements on the car here, so we have to assess how to get the best from them. The dry tyre comparison went well and we have a pretty clear picture of how to use them.”

Jaime Alguersuari: “It was an interesting day, dealing with both wet and dry conditions. We can be reasonably satisfied, because we completed a lot of laps and I am pleased not to have made any mistakes in the wet. However, my lack of experience at this track meant I was unable to make the most of the super-soft Option tyre, setting my fastest lap on old tyres, so a good run on new tyres could have made a significant difference to my lap time. At least I now know the track, although my confidence was not so high in these mixed conditions.”

Adrian Sutil: “The first session was obviously very good. We went out on the extremes first of all and I could set some quick times and felt very confident in the conditions. When a drier line came out later on we then switched to the intermediate tyres and, again, the car behaved very well and I came out P1, which was a nice feeling in front of my home crowd. In the afternoon I think we had a good balance on the car, but we put new sets on just when the rain came so I couldn’t do a good lap time. The position is not really representative of where we are here and we know we can be much stronger. The long run pace was good and I have a positive feeling for tomorrow.”

Tonio Liuzzi: “It was not an easy day because of the weather: in the morning it was raining and then in the afternoon the track started wet but got drier all the time. I think the pace we’ve shown here is quite positive and overall we are in good shape at this point in the weekend. In the morning we still had some problems going into the corners and then on the straights so I couldn’t quite get a clear run. In the afternoon though we had a good session and we understood a few areas for tomorrow, working very closely with Bridgestone to get the most out of the tyres.”

Kamui Kobayashi: “It was a bit tricky for us that it was wet in the morning because we had a huge programme with the new components on the car, but still we got a lot of work done today. Braking for turn six, the hairpin, is the most difficult part on the wet track. The balance isn’t too bad, really, and we can improve it with some set-up changes. We definitely have to find something that enables us to make better use of the softer tyre compound. I don’t regard the difference between hard and super soft as a problem on this track.”

Pedro de la Rosa: “We had good runs in the wet this morning and now also good runs in dry conditions, which actually was a bonus because it was not expected to stay dry in free practice two. We know more or less what we need now. For me we have to improve the front end, and I think we can do this with some set up changes.”

Fernando Alonso: “We have seen before on Fridays that we are very competitive and then on Saturday, the Red Bulls are clearly quicker, so we have to take this result with a grain of salt: in order to be in front tomorrow, we will have to do something out of the ordinary. Today’s changeable weather made for a different day to usual, making it even harder to get a true picture of the hierarchy among the teams: you only had to use the softs five minutes later to gain half a second. We concentrated on our work and now we have to analyse the data to be as well prepared as possible for qualifying and the race. In terms of set-up we are on the right road, although we need to improve the balance of the car. With these track conditions, combined with quite low temperatures, it is important to be very careful with the tyres, so as not to ruin them immediately, especially the softs, so as to be able to evaluate their degradation for the race. From what we could see, there are no particular surprises in store.”

Felipe Massa: “A good start to the weekend here in Hockenheim, but it is still much too soon to say where we are compared to our main opponents. The changing weather conditions will play an important role and we must be as well prepared as possible to tackle the various possible scenarios: for example if qualifying takes place in the wet and the race in the dry. It will be important to understand the behaviour of the tyres and from what we can gather in similar conditions, the softs are pretty good, while the hards are definitely too hard for this track. The latest updates introduced on the F10 also seem to be working well, confirming the progress made on the car. I would like to take this occasion to congratulate Sauber on its forty years in racing: I started my Formula 1 career with them and I really hope they stay in this sport for a long time.”

Rubens Barrichello: “It was a good, mixed up day in terms of the weather and we tried everything tyre-wise from full wets through to slicks. I am happy that we have moved on to another circuit and the car has maintained its competitiveness in all the different conditions we encountered. Equally, we need to find whatever improvement we can tomorrow in order to be sure of a top ten qualifying result.”

Nico Hulkenberg: “It was a positive Friday, not only did I feel good in the car, but there is of course a positive feeling being on the track at your home race. I think we can have a strong weekend if we put it all together. It’s a relatively short circuit and traffic was a bit problematic at times today, but it’s only Friday and hopefully we won’t have any issues in qualifying.”

Sakon Yamamoto: “Today, we there were mixed conditions in the two practices. In the first practice we started on wet tyres and changed to intermediates afterwards. It was a good opportunity for me to try the wet tyres. In the afternoon, the track dried up and some parts were still damped. We could try both tyre compounds, the options and the primes, for the qualifying and the race and I got a lot of experiences and data with these tyres as I could do many laps today preparing for tomorrow.”

Bruno Senna: “It was a good and productive day for us. We managed to do some testing and we got an idea of what we are going to do to the car. I enjoyed driving under wet conditions this morning. At the end of the first session, I pushed a bit too hard and went onto gravel. Now we have to focus on the qualifying and the race and hopefully we can do a good result.”

Robert Kubica: “It was a difficult Friday because of the weather conditions which meant we ran all four tyre specifications at different points during the two sessions. These conditions make it difficult to test anything properly, so we concentrated on getting a feeling for the tyres. The super-soft compound actually performed quite well, possibly helped by the low temperatures, but it was more difficult to judge the hard compound because the track was still a bit damp when I ran with it. In terms of the balance, the car felt a little bit strange today, so we will investigate to find out what the cause might have been, and we will be hoping for more stable conditions tomorrow.”

Vitaly Petrov: “When the weather conditions are changing all the time, it’s difficult to find the right set-up, so we just tried to run and run today, to see how the track was changing and get a feel for the car. Even so, we managed to make some good changes and I think we have a good set-up for tomorrow. There were no problems during the day, and I know that my fastest lap could have been even quicker, so now we must keep working well tonight and see what Saturday brings.”

Nico Rosberg: “In the wet conditions this morning, the car was very good and our pace looked quick. It was more difficult to get the intermediate tyres working, however we didn’t do many laps so I’m sure we would have been fine there too. In the dry this afternoon, I was less happy with the balance of the car in general. It was difficult as there was so little time to try and do our usual programme so we had to focus on the long runs without making too many set-up changes. We need to have a good look at the data and see what we can change without taking too many risks as I’m not completely happy with the balance yet.”

Michael Schumacher: “Today’s sessions were a bit mixed due to the weather conditions but we were able to get the car working by the end so it was a reasonable day. One of my excursions caused some damage to the floor which led to a second excursion afterwards and we decided to stop slightly early this afternoon. We are looking reasonable over one lap and on longer runs, confirming what we already hinted at during the last weekend in Silverstone. If everything goes as it should tomorrow, we should reach fifth or sixth position, which is a step forward, and maybe even more in the race. But for sure, we will do everything possible to achieve a good result for our fans at our home race.”

Timo Glock: “It has been a good start to the weekend. The first session obviously got off to a slow start because of the weather but as the track dried out I was very comfortable with the direction we were starting to head in with the set-up and pleased to end the session in 12th – our highest placed position of the season so far. This afternoon, we improved the car some more to end the day ahead of Lotus as the best of the new teams and within 0.2sec of Toro Rosso. History has shown that we are strong at improving the car from Friday to Saturday and so I think we have a lot more to look forward to yet this weekend. It feels like the latest updates have given us another positive step forward for sure, so I’m optimistic about a good performance in front of my home crowd.”

Lucas di Grassi: “This has been a very productive Friday and we are looking very strong for this weekend thanks to the new updates we have here this weekend. I hope that the weather stays stable so we can continue to keep improving the car and bring home the best result possible on Sunday.”