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2005 Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix
What the teams and drivers said - Friday

Team and Driver Quotes following Friday Practice Sessions

(selected team quotes, for a full team and driver preview click on the team name)

McLaren Mercedes ( Alex Wurz - 1st, Pedro de la Rosa - 4th, Kimi Raikkonen - 8th )

Ron Dennis
"A trouble free practice today, where the team completed the planned programme. What today's performance actually means in comparison to the competition we will only find out in tomorrow's and Sunday's qualifying sessions and in the race."

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Renault ( Fernando Alonso - 2nd, Giancarlo Fisichella 7th )

Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
“Our programmes both ran very smoothly today, which means we have good quality data to work with this evening. We completed more laps than usual in order to get a better handle on the tyre choice, which should help us with our analysis. The car balance was reasonable straight away today but, as always, we still have some room for improvement before tomorrow.”

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Red Bull ( Vitantonio Liuzzi - 3rd, Christian Klien - 13th, David Coulthard - 16th )

Günther Steiner, Technical Director: “We had a good session this afternoon – no real problems. We did several laps and learned about the tyres choice – which is a clear decision. I think we are a little bit off the pace compared to Australia. This morning we had a small throttle problem on Tonio’s car on his last run, but we were able to sort it out immediately.”

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Ferrari ( Michael Schumacher - 5th, Rubens Barrichello - 24th )

Jean Todt: “It is always a special feeling to see a new car make its official debut at a Grand Prix weekend. I am rather cautious when it comes to making an initial assessment. On the one hand, Michael had a good day, allowing us to get a deeper understanding of how the car functions in race conditions. The performance of the car-tyre package leads us to believe that it has an encouraging potential, thanks to the great amount of work carried out by the team and our partners – first and foremost Bridgestone. On the other hand, there is Rubens’ gearbox problem, which prevented him from running in the second hour of practice. We are currently analysing the cause of the problem. In general, it is too early to have a clear picture and we will have to wait until tomorrow and Sunday for that, at a Grand Prix characterised by very high temperatures, although these conditions are the same for everyone. As usual on a Friday, the results are hard to understand. We don’t know our competitors’ programmes and in some cases, they benefit from running a third car.”

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Toyota ( Jarno Trulli - 6th, Ralf Schumacher - 10th, Ricardo Zonta - 14th )

Dieter Gass - Chief Race Engineer
"Unfortunately, Ricardo suffered a gearbox problem in the second session today which meant that he was unable to complete the scheduled long runs to compare the two Michelin tyre compounds. This could have been slightly problematic for us today, but we managed to go through the programme with both Jarno and Ralf, so we feel that the data we have collected will give us a clear direction. We will obviously continue to make improvements in tomorrow's two practice sessions, but at the moment, the cars appear to be as competitive as in Malaysia, which bodes well for the rest of the weekend."

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BAR Honda ( Jenson Button - 9th, Takuma Sato - 12th )

Geoffrey Willis, Technical Director
"It was rather a mixed day for the team with Jenson's day going to plan but Takuma losing his run in the first session with a gear shift problem and then losing much of the second session when he stopped after a spin when his engine stalled while he tried to pull away. We were able to recover the car in time for him to complete a short run at the end of the session. Although we are reasonably happy with our pace we still need to work on the set up overnight to improve the handling."

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Williams BMW ( Nick Heidfeld - 11th, Mark Webber - 15th )

Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1): We had a productive day today to determine cooling levels for the engine and brakes for Sunday's race. We also completed a good tyre comparison which give us enough information to make the compound choice with Michelin. As in Malaysia, the new parts that we have brought to the car appear to be working well.

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Sauber ( Felipe Massa - 17th, Jacques Villeneuve - 20th )

Willy Rampf (Technical Director): "Today we concerned ourselves wholly with race preparation and tyre evaluation, and did not therefore do low-fuel runs. We have amassed a lot of data for analysis before we make our tyre choice for the remainder of the weekend, and so far we are satisfied with our programme."

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Jordan ( Narain Karthikeyan - 18th, Robert Doornbos - 19th, Tiago Monteiro - 21st )

Trevor Carlin, Sporting Director
“We are very pleased with the way today has gone. We have been through quite a lot of work as the three cars had three different programmes. We have got a reasonable balanced car for Saturday’s qualifying and we are very happy with the performance of the whole team in general.”

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Minardi ( Patrick Friesacher - 22nd, Christijan Albers - 23rd )

Paul Stoddard, Team Principal, Minardi Cosworth
“It was an uneventful, but productive day for Minardi. Both drivers completed their full technical programmes in preparation for Sunday’s race, which should be the last for the Minardi Cosworth PS04B. The team looks forward to continuing its technical programme tomorrow, concentrating particularly on reliability this weekend. Both Christijan and Patrick had their first experience of driving at this magnificent track today, and acquitted themselves well in the warm conditions.”

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Bridgestone

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager, said: “As normal on day one of a grand prix, track conditions were dusty this morning so Ferrari didn’t do much running. Jordan and Minardi, on the other hand, did go out and started the important process of assessing their tyre specifications. Robert Doornbos did well and he has provided his teammates with some good tyre data. Rubens Barrichello unfortunately has not had much running today and although it always helps to have the second car for comparison purposes, Michael Schumacher had a productive afternoon and we are confident we have enough data. Naturally we shall be studying wear rates before making final tyre choice decisions and because temperatures are high here we shall also be looking closely at the heat durability of our tyres. First impressions, however, of how the F2005 car and Bridgestone tyre package is performing are positive and we are looking forward to getting out there again.”

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Michelin

Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin motorsport director “The Bahrain International Circuit has evolved considerably since we last raced here 12 months ago. In 2004 the surface was very abrasive, which is typical for a new circuit, but this year it is much less so – if anything, the degree of change has taken us slightly by surprise.
“We have completed a number of valid comparison runs throughout the day, particularly this afternoon, but will have to pore over the data very carefully before any definitive tyre choices are made. The track has definitely become faster as the day has progressed and we need to analyse its probable short-term evolution very carefully. From what we have seen so far, though, it is conceivable that our ‘prime’ and ‘option’ tyres will both be used in Sunday’s race. Both have performed extremely well so far.”

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