Formula 1 News

2010 Monaco GP, practice: Team quotes 

Ross Brawn: “As always at Monaco, the track conditions evolved rapidly today and it was important to make full use of the available practice time. We lost some running with Nico this morning but he did well to come back and find reasonable solutions for the set-up. We followed our usual practice programme of set-up, fuel load and tyre comparisons today. Our low fuel pace seems reasonable but we have more work to do on high fuel before Sunday. Overall a reasonable start to the weekend and we are enjoying the unique challenge and working environment that Monaco provides.”

Norbert Haug: “Quite a promising start to the weekend for us today and certainly a different picture from what we saw last Sunday in Barcelona. Nico and Michael’s lap times on both types of tyres with lesser fuel as well as during race simulation runs looked not bad at all. There is definitely more work to do before Saturday but so far so good.”

Martin Whitmarsh: “A very productive pair of sessions for us – even if we know we still have much to do to reach our ultimate potential around this most demanding of circuits. Jenson and Lewis got themselves dialled in extremely quickly this morning and were both happy with the car. This afternoon, it seems like some of the changes we made between the sessions weren’t as positive as we’d hoped, so we had to dial back on some of those. We’ve still got a few issues to resolve – but the engineers have the whole of tomorrow to rectify them, so I’m sure we’ll be competitive for the rest of the weekend. A quick look at today’s times would suggest that Saturday’s qualifying session will be extremely tense and incredibly closely fought – which is fantastic for Formula 1.”

Dominic Harlow: “Our programme for today looked to concentrate on the super soft tyre long run performance after last year’s race where the tyre suffered quite high degradation in the early stages. We were also looking at cooling and brake set-up for the race here, both of which will be important on Sunday. Because of the light rain arriving at the end of FP2, things were accelerated slightly, with us running the super soft tyre slightly earlier to ensure that we got the data we needed. The drivers made full use of the laps they had to get comfortable on the circuit and the areas of new surface seem to have improved the grip level slightly. If we handle the busy track correctly on Saturday we can look forward to a competitive qualifying performance.”

Vijay Mallya: “Today we were very satisfied with the pace of our longer runs and the positions in both sessions were encouraging. However what we have seen is that the speed difference between the cars – sometimes up to five seconds – will make qualifying a lottery. We believe we have the potential to be right up there fighting for Q3 but we’ll have to see how it goes in on Saturday. The right ingredients are there, we just need them to mix together in the right way.”

Alan Permane: “It’s been a very positive day for us with both drivers completing good mileage. Robert was the quickest car on the medium compound (prime) tyre, although he didn’t have such a good run on the super-soft, but we’ve no major concerns. As for Vitaly, this was his first time at Monaco in an F1 car and he did a very good job during both sessions, and has ended the day close to Robert in terms of pace. Today’s conditions were typical Monaco: dirty, dusty and constantly evolving throughout the day. There was some light rain towards the end of the afternoon session, but the forecast for Saturday and Sunday suggests that more rain is unlikely. The car is working very well, but it’s still not 100% and we’ve got to dial out some oversteer. Fortunately we have a free day tomorrow to look over the data to try and cure that.”

Stefano Domenicali: “This weekend has got off to a positive start for us, but we are well aware that the result of free practice does not tell you much and that, especially on an untypical track like this, the situation can change rapidly. There is still a lot of work to do to be as well prepared as possible for qualifying and the race, but we can be reasonably confident in affirming that we will be in the hunt. Now we have over a day and a half ahead of us to fine tune every detail in order to get out every last bit of potential from the package we have at our disposal.”

Chris Dyer: “I would say this was a good day. First of all, it’s always positive to be able to complete three hours of free practice around the Monaco track without doing any damage to the cars, which meant both drivers were able to work through their entire planned programme: we just had to shorten the time on some elements in the afternoon, because of the approaching rain. Both Felipe and Fernando said they were pleased with the handling of the car and managed to get both types of tyre brought here by Bridgestone to work well. Clearly, without knowing the fuel loads in the cars of our closest rivals, it’s hard to know exactly where we are compared to them, but I think I can safely say we should be able to fight for the top places on the starting grid.”

Colin Kolles: “Our drivers paid a high price for a small mistake. But they will improve on Saturday. We did some good preparation work for the race, but we could not find the right balance to make the most of the tyres and achieve an optimal lap time. We have a good basis to build on ahead of qualifying.”

James Key: “Like any first day at Monaco, the track was obviously slippery at the beginning and tricky, so we just allowed the drivers to do their laps and get a feel for the car and the tyres. We did some set-up work in the morning and suffered a little bit from the grip level, but everyone had the same problem in that respect. In the afternoon we consolidated on what we found in the morning. We went through another programme on the prime tyres and then tried the option tyres, which worked pretty well by the time we ran them, because the track was in better condition. We then went on to some race simulation work. The race pace looked quite reasonable, however, there is work to do on our qualifying pace. That’s what we will look at in detail for Saturday.”

Nick Wirth: “A very productive day for the team. Lucas experienced a gearbox issue this morning in P1 which shortened his first session, whereas Timo had a positive set of runs. In P2, Lucas made clear progress with his setup, but sadly got the timing of his new option tyre run to coincide precisely with the rain shower! Timo had a gearbox sensor failure at the beginning of P2 which degraded his shifts and lost him time all session, plus his option tyre running was also done during the start of the shower. Nevertheless, we have gathered a good amount of data on both cars, and we look forward to putting it all together, along with some new aero parts arriving tonight, when we start again Saturday.”

Jody Egginton: “I think the session went quite well today. Heikki obviously put in a good performance, putting in some good times at the end and I think with the changing weather conditions we did a good job. Jarno was a little bit unlucky unfortunately with an engine issue which prevented him from completing the program but we completed a good deal of work and I think we’re now looking ok for Saturday.”

Mike Gascoyne: “Today was a reasonably good day. Jarno’s programme this afternoon was cut short with an engine problem, although the engine in question was a high-mileage unit that reached the end of the line today. Heikki had no problems completing the planned programme, with a good long run at the end, so overall the team had a good day. The cars are in good shape, and we’re pretty confident there’s more to come for Saturday.”

Sam Michael: “We spent today evaluating new aero components, We currently have only one new rear wing assembly so Rubens ran it in the morning and Nico in the afternoon. The second will arrive in time for third practice and will stay on the cars for qualifying and the race. We covered a lot of set-up work with Rubens and Nico which has given us plenty of data to study before Saturday. Our target for qualifying is to get both cars into the top ten.”