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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 - 2nd, Kimi Raikkonen - No Time ) RON DENNIS
"Juan Pablo and Pedro
completed their planned programme without any problems. Both drivers gathered a lot of data which will determine our strategy for
the rest of the weekend. Unfortunately Kimi's running was cut short with an engine failure which will make his race even more
challenging." Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Ferrari ( Michael Schumacher -
3rd, Rubens Barrichello - 7th ) Jean Todt: “We went through our usual Friday programme, centred on defining the best set-up
on the cars and carrying out a comparison of the two types of Bridgestone tyre available to us. It is too early to make any
predictions and now we have to study the data to be as well prepared as possible for qualifying and for the race. Although I’m not
particularly keen on celebrating anniversaries, the fact of being here at Magny- Cours on 1st July means I cannot help but think
back to this day twelve years ago, when I took charge of the Gestione Sportiva.” Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Renault ( Fernando Alonso -
4th, Giancarlo Fisichella - 5th ) Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
"We had a very normal Friday session, with
a good balance on the cars from the word go and just some fine-tuning to complete tomorrow. The day was relatively trouble-free,
although Fernando had to cut his run short this afternoon because of a cracked exhaust. The tyre test was slightly compromised by
traffic, but we will be able to pick out the relevant data overnight. All in all, it was a standard Friday, and we encountered no
problems that might worry us for the race." Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Toyota (
Olivier Panis - 6th, Jarno Trulli - 8th, Ralf Schumacher - 9th ) Mike
Gascoyne - Technical Director Chassis
"We had no problems on any of the cars, and we have all the information we need to
make a decision on the tyres, so that was a good day for the team. It was good to have Olivier with us for the French Grand Prix. I
think he enjoyed his day, completing his tyre evaluation programme. He was pretty happy with the handling of the car, as were the
two race drivers. Jarno and Ralf both worked through their programmes too. Now we just have to carefully evaluate the data for the
tyre choice and aim for another finish on the podium." Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Red Bull ( David Coulthard -
10th, Vitantonio Liuzzi - 15th, Christian Klien - 22nd ) Christian Horner, Sporting Director: “Unfortunately Christian made a mistake at the high-speed
chicane (Turn 6 & 7) and had quite a heavy impact, which damaged some of the new aerodynamic update that has gone onto the cars
this weekend. Christian’s car will be repaired overnight and he’ll be ready to go first thing in the morning. Generally our
performance looks quite good, David’s times were very respectable, Tonio worked well through the tyre programme and I think we’re
looking in reasonable shape.” Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Sauber ( Jacques Villeneuve -
11th, Felipe Massa - 13th ) Peter Sauber
(Team Principal): "We expect much hotter weather for the race, so our work on set-up today was conducted with these potential
circumstances in mind. Both C24s ran flawlessly and I believe that we have a good basis with tyre choice and chassis set-up." Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top BAR Honda (
Jenson Button - 12th, Takuma Sato
- 14th ) GIL DE FERRAN, SPORTING DIRECTOR
"Looking at
the final timesheets, one could be forgiven for thinking that we are disappointed with today's result. However, the opposite is true
since we are quite happy with today's outcome. Once it became clear that rain was no longer a threat and track conditions were
likely to remain reasonably consistent, we very much concentrated on doing longer runs, especially in the afternoon when the track
was quickest. The Michelin tyres proved to be quite consistent during those long runs and we believe that we have made a step
forward in our high-downforce configuration for this race. We are hopeful of a good performance in qualifying tomorrow. Finally, it
feels good just to be concentrating on racing again after a turbulent few weeks." Full
Team and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Williams
BMW ( Mark Webber - 16th, Nick Heidfeld - 17th ) Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1):
We have had a reasonable
day in terms of the programme. We did all our homework on tyres, brakes and cooling. We have some aerodynamic improvements here to
the car. They are all working well and as expected. Now we need to work on improvements for tomorrow. Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Jordan
( Robert Doornbos - 18th, Narain Karthikeyan - 19th, Tiago Monteiro - 23rd ) ADRIAN BURGESS, SPORTING DIRECTOR
“We did not have a
bad start but it was not a perfect start either. Narain did a solid job. We learnt some useful information from him in order to go
in the right direction for the rest of the weekend. Tiago had a brief spin this morning, which damaged the car but then we were able
to catch up in the afternoon. Robert did a good job as normal and put another 200 kms on the new car, which allowed us to gain very
valuable information and solve some of the issues we had. It was a very productive day for the EJ15B.”
Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Minardi
( Christijan Albers - 20th, Patrick Friesacher - 21st ) PAUL STODDART, Team Principal, Minardi Cosworth
“It’s
good to be back doing what F1 teams should focus on, which is the racing. Both sessions today went reasonably well for Minardi,
other than a gearbox change that had to be carried out on Christijan’s car during the second session. Once again, the mechanics
did a fantastic job to make the switch in less than 20 minutes. It’s interesting to note that, despite this year’s new
regulations designed to slow the cars, the Minardi Cosworth PS05 is a second quicker than its predecessor was here last year.
We’re very pleased at the huge effort, both here at the track and back at the factory, that has generated this progress.”
Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Bridgestone Hisao
Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager, said: “The track was quite green this morning which resulted in poor grip
conditions and we noticed many of the cars struggling with understeer. We could also see some front tyre graining but as normal the
situation improved through the afternoon session when the tyres started to work better. We did some long distance runs in the second
session and now we just need to check the tyres for wear, blisters and so forth to make sure there aren’t any problems and that
they are durable enough. Once this is done we can make our recommendations as usual this evening to the teams.” Full
Bridgestone Practice Report Back to Top Michelin Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin
motorsport director
“Magny-Cours differs from some other circuits in that it offers good, consistent grip almost from the start
of a race weekend. Its character tends not to change too dramatically as more rubber is laid down and we saw some very
representative times being set during today’s first session.
“It is always nice to race on home soil, of course, but it doesn’t
make a shred of difference to our preparations – we tackle every grand prix with exactly the same degree of commitment. People
sometimes assume we have an unfair advantage in France, but that’s absolutely not the case because we don’t conduct F1 tests at
Magny-Cours.
“From our data, however, we can see that the tyres we are using this weekend – there are two compounds, each
available with two subtly different constructions – are well suited to the conditions.”
Full
Michelin Practice Report Back to Top
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