Formula 1 News

2011 Turkish GP, practice: Team quotes 

Martin Whitmarsh: “This morning’s uncharacteristic heavy rain meant that we opted to conserve our supply of Wet and Intermediate Pirelli tyres by sitting out the majority of the session. With cold and unpredictable weather predicted for the remainder of the weekend, and with relatively little to learn from running on a wet track, we felt it was more prudent to save the rubber for Saturday and Sunday. Happily, this afternoon’s session turned out drier than we’d imagined, and we were able to pack the majority of our day’s run-programme into P2. Indeed, both drivers’ long-run pace looks extremely promising. Lewis and Jenson felt happy with the balance of their cars, although both said that the bumps upon entry to Turn 12 were fairly severe and unsettled the car. It’s too early to read anything into this afternoon’s times, but we’re happy that we’ve found a good baseline for the set-up and that we can build upon it for the rest of the weekend.”

Ross Brawn: “We had a reasonably good day and it was nice to get a lot of work done. We had a good opportunity this morning to see what the car was like in the wet conditions. It was also the first time that Michael had really driven the car in the wet, so that’s useful as the conditions this weekend could still be mixed. Then we had a nice dry session this afternoon and completed a lot of work on low and high fuel. The balance of the car isn’t there yet and there is a lot of work ahead, but the team and drivers have worked very well today.”

Norbert Haug: “The morning session in the wet saw Nico and Michael complete 32 laps and the lap times on wet tyres looked quite good. In dry conditions this afternoon, we ran 50 laps and worked through our planned programme. I would not read too much into today’s positions in both sessions; there is more work to do for tomorrow.”

James Key: “Today was the first wet session of the year, and we ran the full wet tyres in FP1. Sergio had some aerodynamic test items on his car, which we plan to introduce at the next events. Kamui had some mechanical parts. From what we can tell in the morning’s difficult conditions, things seem to work well on the mechanical side and we plan to continue with these updates for Saturday. In the afternoon we worked through a normal programme in dry conditions, comparing the tyres and working on the set-up of the car. Overall this was troublefree for Sergio, and we are generally happy with the car. However, we have a few bounce issues in lower speed which we have to tackle. For Kamui it was reasonable for the first outings, but on his out lap on the option tyres he suffered an hydraulic leak, and he had no chance to put a sensible lap time together. The team did a great job in fixing the car quickly, and getting it out for a longer run. We will analyse all the data from today and see if we can make further progress for tomorrow.”

Dominic Harlow: “It has been quite a good Friday for the team with our three drivers contributing to the programme. In the FP1 session the rain made the circuit quite tricky: conditions were in the most part fairly consistent, but at times some standing water built up at turns two and 11 – this was the case after the red flag. We ran only the wet tyre and worked to find a balance during what was still quite a new experience for us in terms of running on the Pirelli tyres in this weather. It dried up for the afternoon and, as well as sitting out the morning session, Adrian had to work through an aero test programme, which he did very well. We’ve now got to focus on the data to understand what we have learnt today. For Paul, after trying the new front wing in the morning, it was more about tyre evaluation this afternoon. Nico, once again provided us with a solid baseline and initial set-up evaluation in the wet.”

Sam Michael: “This morning was wet so we didn’t start our evaluation of new aero components until second practice. During that session we ran the new rear wing on Rubens’ car and we were pleased to see that it functioned well, with a healthy gain in top speed and no signs of aero separation. We will have a second rear wing for Pastor’s car tomorrow. We also ran a new rear brake duct and new front wings on both cars. All the data from those parts checked out well, with positive driver feedback. So we’ll race everything this weekend. We also investigated a different mechanical set-up with Rubens. Unfortunately before we could run the soft tyre with Rubens we had a KERS water system failure and had to stop his car to investigate due to safety issues. We’re looking into the problem now. We didn’t use KERS all day on Pastor’s car due to a voltage fault early in second practice. With the limited number of parts Pastor will also have to use the old front wing tomorrow after damaging his new front wing in second practice.”

Thierry Salvi: “We didn’t manage to do much running in P1 this morning due to the weather so we had to work a lot harder during P2 this afternoon, especially with specific engine mapping. I hope we will have good feedback from the drivers and can take another step forwards on strategy. I think there is more to come from the whole package tomorrow so this was a pretty good start to the weekend.”

Mike Gascoyne: “A pretty good day. Obviously we had limited running this morning in the wet conditions as we wanted to save tyres in case we have to use wets in the race. Unfortunately that limited the running Karun and Jarno could do but this afternoon we completed the whole program without any real problems with the performance levels we showed I think we are looking at having a pretty good weekend.”

Pat Fry: “It’s always difficult to say what the real order is after Friday’s free practice sessions and that is even more the case when one of them takes place in the wet, as was the case today. At least this morning we were able to get a first impression of the balance and handling of our car on both types of rain tyre. However, we didn’t do that many laps because the weather forecast for the rest of the weekend is still uncertain, therefore we have to try and manage the few sets of tyres available to us as well as possible. In the afternoon, we concentrated mainly on evaluating new aerodynamic components and, as usual, comparing the two types of dry tyre. Unfortunately, we lost at least half an hour with Fernando, because of an hydraulic problem and so the Spaniard was not exactly in the best of shape to get the most out of the soft tyres. As for Felipe, he managed to get through the entire planned programme. Some of the new elements, like the rear wing for example, immediately showed good results, while others, such as the floor and the front wing, still need further careful evaluation.”

Colin Kolles: “I’m confident that we took a step forward today. It’s a shame that Tonio wasn’t able to put a lap together on the soft tyres but he did a good job on the prime tyres. I think that tomorrow we will look even better and, as I said before, we’ve taken another step forward.”

John Booth: “The elements of the upgrade package that we fitted to Jerome’s car have performed well today, so we’re pleased with the progress there. Timo’s car, with the full package, was always going to be a bigger ‘ask’ because of the complexity of the car at the rear with the new blown exhaust system. It is always difficult coming straight into a race weekend with such a new and complicated package and with no testing to optimise it. As we predicted there have been a few issues to contend with, particularly with the management of the heat from the exhausts. Generally we’ve made a good start on Jerome’s side but we have yet to realise the full performance potential of the wider package with Timo. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of data to look through to see how we can extract more from the package.”