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Team and Driver Quotes following Thursday
Practice Sessions
(selected
team quotes, for a full team and driver preview click on the team name) Renault ( Fernando Alonso -
1st, Giancarlo Fisichella 4th ) Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
"The opening day in Monaco
always throws up a lot of questions, and today was no exception. It is very difficult to judge the changing conditions accurately,
with the circuit grip increasing as rubber is laid down on the track surface, which means it is hard to draw any firm conclusions
from the lap-times. However, the objective of a day like this is to get lots of laps done, which helps the drivers tune in to the
circuit and gives the engineers the best chance of making an informed decision on tyre choice. Encouragingly, the cars already seem
quite well balanced – which is not always the case in the low grip conditions early in the Monaco weekend." Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top McLaren Mercedes (
Alex Wurz - 2nd, Juan Pablo Montoya - 5th, Kimi Raikkonen - 6th ) Ron Dennis
"Today's challenge was to adopt the
cars to the ever changing track conditions which of course made tyre choice and set-up work even more difficult. All three cars ran
trouble free with the lap times purely showing variation in fuel loads and tyre conditions. Kimi had an encouraging day whilst Juan
Pablo's mistake in his last run means that the team has a little more work to do now than planned. Pedro put in another disciplined
and constructive performance and we are looking forward to the rest of the weekend." Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Red Bull ( David Coulthard -
3rd, Vitantonio Liuzzi - 7th, Christian Klien - 17th ) Günther Steiner, Technical Director:
“We have to work on
the balance of both cars a little more, as Tonio and David are still not 100 per cent happy. Christian’s car had a problem with a
sensor, which prevented the traction control from working properly and resulted in his contact with the barrier. We will now analyse
all the data we have gathered on tyre performance, to ensure we make the right choice for the weekend.” Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Sauber ( Felipe Massa -
8th, Jacques Villeneuve - 14th ) Willy Rampf (Technical Director):
"Felipe said that the rear end of
the car felt a little strange before the right front wheel locked up under braking and he went off in the first corner. We will
carry out a full investigation to analyse the cause of the incident and the extent of the damage. It was a great shame, because both
Felipe and Jacques made satisfactory progress thanks to a good step we made with Felipe's set-up between morning practice and this
afternoon's session." Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Toyota ( Ralf Schumacher -
9th, Ricardo Zonta - 10th, Jarno Trulli - 13th ) Mike Gascoyne - Technical Director Chassis
"In many ways
that was a typical first day in Monaco. The track was very dirty to begin with, then the track conditions evolved a lot throughout
the two sessions. There was also a lot of traffic which makes conclusions difficult to draw. All the drivers completed their
programmes with no real worries, they were just complaining generally of a lack of grip on the dirty circuit. We have to evaluate
the data pretty carefully to make our tyre choice for the rest of the weekend. The cars look reasonably competitive so now we just
have to make the right decisions for Saturday and Sunday." Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Ferrari ( Michael Schumacher -
11th, Rubens Barrichello - 15th ) Jean Todt: “The first day of the weekend is usually devoted to finding the best set-up
and evaluating the two types of tyre available to us. Fine tuning the car is especially important here, because of the nature of the
track. And on this aspect, we still have a lot of work to do, especially in light of the outcome of this afternoon’s session.
Michael felt a vibration in his car and as a precautionary measure we decided to bring him into the pits. Despite the fact that he
therefore lost the final part of the second hour, we have still picked up plenty of data. We have one and a half days ahead of us in
which to analyse the situation in order to be as well prepared as possible for Saturday. Currently, it is hard to tell what is the
true order among the teams, as we do not know what fuel loads the others were running.” Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Williams
BMW ( Mark Webber - 12th, Nick Heidfeld - 16th ) Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1):
We spent the
day doing our regular homework for the race - evaluating the different tyres, checking brakes for temperatures and doing the normal
engine cooling checks. We made several changes to the cars during the sessions and have improved the set-up. Saturday will be spent
working finding some more improvements for the race. We have also brought some new aerodynamic parts for this race which appear to
be working well. Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Jordan
( Robert Doornbos - 18th, Tiago Monteiro - 20th, Narain Karthikeyan - 21st ) Trevor
Carlin, Sporting Director
“It was a very steep learning curve for the drivers today. Narain had a small touch with the
barrier this morning, which limited his laps this afternoon. Robert has done a good job helping us with our tyre evaluation and
Tiago pushed hard, while learning the circuit and going faster and faster lap after lap. Now we will have to improve again on
Saturday.” Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Minardi
( Patrick Friesacher - 19th, Christijan Albers - 22nd ) Paul Stoddart, Team Principal, Minardi Cosworth
“Today saw Patrick
demonstrate the improvement and potential in this year’s Minardi Cosworth PS05, finishing ahead of both the Jordan race drivers,
and within a few hundredths of a second of the Jordan test driver, who, of course, had two extra sets of tyres available. It is also
worth noting that Patrick’s fastest lap was less than two seconds off the time set by Rubens Barrichello’s Ferrari. Christijan,
on the other hand, struggled to find a balance in his car today, but I’m sure will produce an improved performance on Saturday.
Overall, Minardi has closed the gap to Jordan, its main rival this season, and we look forward to an exciting weekend here in
Monaco.” Full Team
and Driver Practice Report Back to Top Bridgestone Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical
Manager
“The
Bridgestone teams tried both their tyre specifications this afternoon. Ferrari unfortunately didn’t do too much running but apart
from that the tyres looked good, wear appearance was nice and we got a picture of the performance of each specification. So, as
always, following our tyre checks this evening and an analysis of the data, we will make our recommendations to each of our three
teams.” Full
Bridgestone Practice Report Back to Top Michelin Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin motorsport director
“There are two key factors about
the opening day in Monaco. Firstly, there is absolutely no margin for error and drivers tend to be a little conservative initially,
while they reacclimatise to the surroundings. Secondly, the track is always very dirty at the beginning of the weekend and lap times
came down considerably as conditions improved during the course of the day.
“We have two tyre compounds available for our
partners this weekend and both have performed very well in hot, testing conditions. Speed over one lap is all very well, of course,
but we need to make sure we have both pace and durability on Sunday. From what we have seen during several long runs today, we seem
to be in good shape on both fronts. Our engineers will pore over all the data very carefully but it is quite possible that both
Michelin tyre options will be used in the race.”
“Several Michelin teams have the potential to challenge for victory – and
that is a source of immense satisfaction.” Full
Michelin Practice Report Back to Top BAR Honda (
Jenson Button , Takuma Sato ) Team banned from event ... more Back to Top
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