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2005 British 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 ( Pedro de la Rosa - 1st, Juan Pablo Montoya - 3rd, Kimi Raikkonen - 4th  )

RON DENNIS
"Silverstone lap times have always been reflective of the grip levels, which vary considerably from week to week and together with today's breezy conditions made finding the set-up a little more challenging. The weather forecast for the balance of the weekend seems to be ever improving which I think will suit our team, and we will continue to work hard to ensure a competitive showing in Sunday's race."

Full Team and Driver Practice Report  Back to Top

Toyota ( Ricardo Zonta - 2nd, Ralf Schumacher - 5th, Jarno Trulli - 6th )

Dieter Gass - Chief Race Engineer "That was a very good session for us. We didn't have any problems with any of the cars and we got through all the work that we had planned. Ricardo put in some useful work on the tyres and that leaves us with a clear idea of which direction to take. Both race drivers made it through their programmes and we found some different solutions on the set-ups which proved quite successful. Overall we look to be in good shape for the weekend."

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Renault ( Fernando Alonso - 7th, Giancarlo Fisichella - 13th )

Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
"Silverstone is a circuit where the ‘fuel effect' – the time penalty for carrying a given quantity of fuel – is among the highest of the season. Therefore, to see such a big, closely-packed group on the timesheets, especially when the lap-time is around eighty seconds, is quite surprising, and undoubtedly an indication of some varying fuel loads along the pit-lane. At Renault, we ran our normal Friday programme, working for the race, selecting tyres and beginning to fine-tune the balance of the cars. Neither driver is yet happy, with both complaining of high speed understeer, but I think we have made a solid start to our race weekend."

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Red Bull ( Vitantonio Liuzzi - 8th, David Coulthard - 9th, Christian Klien - 14th )

David Coulthard
“A pretty normal Friday really. We’ve been working through the programme, trying to find out where we are with the set-up of the car and tyres. We’re not that far off the pace here compared to normal Fridays, but we don’t know what fuel levels other people were running.”

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Ferrari ( Michael Schumacher - 10th, Rubens Barrichello - 15th )

Jean Todt: “The terrible events in London yesterday serve to remind us how lucky everyone is who works in Formula 1. Here we are at Silverstone today, but it is hard to put yesterday’s events out of our mind. They also show how unimportant is the bickering that occasionally takes place in our own little world when compared to tragedies like this. As for what happened on the track, there is not much to say. We carried out the usual programme of finding the best set-up and comparing the two types of tyre at out disposal. It is too early to make any predictions. Now the ball is in the engineers’ court: they must analyse the data from these two hours of practice, when ambient and track temperatures were rather low.”

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BAR Honda ( Jenson Button - 11th, Takuma Sato - 19th )

GIL DE FERRAN, SPORTING DIRECTOR
"It has been a mixed day for us today. On Jenson's car we had a very productive day, we completed our tyre evaluation and he seems fairly happy with the car. Speed-wise, Jenson did some quite competitive long runs which make us positive for the weekend. On the other hand, we unfortunately had a disrupted second session on Taku's car when an electrical problem stopped his day early, making it difficult to draw definite conclusions."

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Williams BMW ( Mark Webber - 12th, Nick Heidfeld - 18th )

Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1): We have been struggling with grip this morning, but we are starting to get some direction now. We still have a lot of work to do. We will look at the data tonight and see what decisions we will take for tomorrow.

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Sauber ( Felipe Massa - 16th, Jacques Villeneuve - 17th )

Willy Rampf (Technical Director): "Our positions today do not reflect our true level of performance. Felipe was held up by traffic on his run with new tyres, and we were unable to repair aerodynamic damage that Jacques experienced after hitting some debris because the spare components were in a truck that was delayed in traffic getting to the circuit. Some revised front wings have now arrived, so we will be in better shape tomorrow."

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Jordan ( Robert Doornbos - 20th, Tiago Monteiro - 22nd, Narain Karthikeyan - 23rd )

ADRIAN BURGESS, SPORTING DIRECTOR
“It was a busy day for all of us here at our home race. Tiago had an engine change, which will obviously put him back after tomorrow’s qualifying. However, he recovered fairly well and did a good job in the second session. Narain ran through all his Bridgestone tyre programmes in order to help us with our strategy. Robert experienced some technical problems with the new EJ15B car but he managed to get the tyre comparison we needed. We are fairly happy with the position we are in for tomorrow’s qualifying.”

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Minardi ( Christijan Albers - 21st, Patrick Friesacher - 24th )

PAUL STODDART, Team Principal, Minardi Cosworth
“Today saw both Minardi drivers put in solid performances in preparation for Sunday’s British Grand Prix. Despite a few minor technical issues, particularly with Patrick’s car, it’s encouraging once again to see Minardi register a competitive performance against its nearest rivals.”

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Bridgestone

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager, said: “As is normal on a Friday we had a green track this morning resulting in poor grip but track conditions have been improving as the day has progressed. We did see some graining in the first practice but that is mainly a result of the green track. Our teams were able to carry out their tyre comparisons today and Ferrari did a long run tyre comparison this afternoon which has shown both their specifications to be competitive. We’ll be taking the teams’ data this evening and once we have assessed the tyres and their wear rates, we’ll be in a better position to advise our teams about their final tyre choice for the weekend.”

Full Bridgestone Practice Report  Back to Top

Michelin

Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin motorsport director
“The track was quick this morning – but it was also very abrasive, partly as a result of being ‘green’ in the wake of yesterday’s rain. Conditions improved as more rubber was laid down, however, and the circuit became much more stable by this afternoon. It is quite similar to Magny-Cours in some respects, because there tends not to be major evolutionary changes once things settle down.
“We have two ‘primes’ and two ‘options’ available for our partner teams this weekend and we have been able to accumulate plenty of valuable data. I’m not sure that today’s times will be an exact reflection of tomorrow’s grid, but irrespective of fuel loads it is a fact that a quick time at Silverstone requires a finely-honed aerodynamic balance, to cope with the high-speed directional changes, and good tyres.”

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