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

Team and Driver Quotes following Friday Practice Sessions

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

Toyota ( Ricardo Zonta - 1st, Jarno Trulli - 6th, Ralf Schumacher - 16th )

Dieter Gass - Chief Race Engineer "It's great to have Ricardo back on top of the timesheets. We were a bit surprised by the lap because it was not on a brand new tyre, so that was very good. It was a difficult day today to get everything sorted for tyre choice, because there was a lot of traffic, so we really have to analyse the data to understand the behaviour. There's still some work to do on the car balance, but that was a trouble-free day and our performance looks promising."

Full Team and Driver Practice Report  Back to Top

McLaren Mercedes ( Pedro de la Rosa - 2nd, Juan Pablo Montoya - 3rd, Kimi Raikkonen - 4th  )

RON DENNIS
"A productive first day here in Turkey. We completed our scheduled programme and are happy with the data we have obtained so far from this impressive but demanding new circuit. The work we have done back home preparing for this track has allowed us to arrive well prepared."

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BAR Honda ( Jenson Button - 5th, Takuma Sato - 10th )

GIL DE FERRAN, SPORTING DIRECTOR
"We have had a good start to the weekend at this interesting and challenging circuit. Despite the newness of the surface, the grip has been reasonable and we worked to a get a good balance on the cars. Although many others had off-track excursions, neither driver had any problems learning the circuit. Both cars completed their full programmes without any issues, so now we have to assess all the information we have for the very important task of selecting the race tyres. The car appears to be quite competitive here so we are looking forward to tomorrow's qualifying and the race."

Full Team and Driver Practice Report  Back to Top

Red Bull ( Vitantonio Liuzzi - 6th, David Coulthard - 12th, Christian Klien - 18th )

Vitantonio Liuzzi (Third Driver):
“Turn eight, the high-speed corner, is really fantastic to drive. The section of track after the corner is so long that you really start feeling the G force, which squishes you a bit in the car. As a driver, that’s an awesome feeling. It’s such a great corner – you know you’ll get into it okay, but you don’t always know if you’re going to get out so well on the other side! During the first session on an in-lap, I tried something a little different, but cut too much of the kerb and went off the track. It was only an in-lap though, so it wasn’t really much of a drama.”

Full Team and Driver Practice Report  Back to Top

Renault ( Fernando Alonso - 7th, Giancarlo Fisichella - 8th )

Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
"Both drivers seem quite impressed with the new Istanbul circuit. It is reasonably challenging, and combines a big mix of curves with a couple of good overtaking opportunities. The grip levels seemed quite low today, but otherwise our Friday ran reasonably normally for a new track. Obviously, we have a lot of data to analyse this evening, as we cannot rely on historical knowledge to inform our tyre choice; the process will certainly involve estimating how the behaviour of the track and tyres might evolve as grip levels increase through the weekend, before we make a final choice on our tyres. For a Friday, the balance was very good and any problems were down to the poor levels of grip rather than any inherent imbalance with the car."

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Williams BMW ( Mark Webber - 11th, Nick Heidfeld - 19th )

Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1):
We have had a productive first day in Istanbul on this new circuit. We worked through our programme on tyres, brakes and cooling. The new circuit looks good and is close to simulation. The surface was quite clean for an unused track. We have brought some new aerodynamic parts here to the race and they have all worked fine.

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Ferrari ( Michael Schumacher - 13th, Rubens Barrichello - 15th )

Jean Todt: “Today is an important day for Formula 1, which thanks to the efforts of Bernie Ecclestone, in establishing the Turkish Grand Prix, has created a new venue on its calendar. I wish to compliment the organisers who have done a great job in a short space of time. Turkey is a rapidly developing country and also represents an important commercial opportunity for Ferrari, who actually yesterday opened a new showroom here in Istanbul. The two hours of free practice were spent learning the track and comparing the two types of tyre at our disposal. From what we could see, the track surface does not provide much grip, especially work on the facilities has left dust on the track. Tyre wear will be even more important than usual and, along with our friends at Bridgestone, we must now study the data very attentively to make the best choice from what we have brought here. We also have to work to optimise car set-up. This race marks the start of the final third of the season. Our aim is still to get back to winning races. We know it will be very difficult, as indeed it has been throughout this championship.”

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Sauber ( Jacques Villeneuve - 14th, Felipe Massa - 17th )

Peter Sauber (Team Principal): "The infrastructure here at the inaugural Turkish Grand Prix is as good as we have come to expect from Herman Tilke's new venues, but I have never heard so many positive comments from the drivers about a new circuit's layout. To me, this is the most important thing today."

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Jordan ( Tiago Monteiro - 20th, Nicolas Kiesa - 23rd, Narain Karthikeyan - 24th )

ADRIAN BURGESS, SPORTING DIRECTOR
“It was an interesting day for the whole team, engineers and drivers included on a new circuit. Narain, Tiago and Nicolas have done a very good job. Narain unfortunately did not get to run new tyres this afternoon as he had a small gearbox problem, which restricted his run. Nicolas and Tiago did some Bridgestone tyre comparison, which will give us a lot of information. Now we are going to analyse this data in order to improve the car and make the right choice of tyres.”

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Minardi ( Robert Doornbos - 21st, Christijan Albers - 22nd, Enrico Toccacello - 25th )

PAUL STODDART, Team Principal, Minardi Cosworth
“First of all, let me congratulate everyone involved in the design and construction of the Istanbul circuit. Without doubt, it demonstrates clearly the standard that can be achieved in terms of modern F1 track design, and the Turkish public should feel very proud of what has been achieved with this amazing facility. As for Minardi, the first day of practice was not without issues, the main one being a gearbox pressure problem that put paid to Robert’s opening session after the second run, and delayed the start of his second session. Despite this, however, both drivers completed their technical programmes, and together with our new Friday tester, Enrico Toccacelo, all three should feel proud of their efforts today. We proved once again that we are competitive against our nearest rivals, Jordan.”

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Bridgestone

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager, said: “Being a new circuit there has been virtually no other running on this track so the surface is really quite dirty. Combined with the smooth surface this meant that conditions were slippery today. Taking this into consideration our teams did their main tyre evaluations in the afternoon session. It was quite difficult to make a fair comparison but now we need to check which tyres will be the best choice over a race distance. We know this circuit is quite tough on the tyres, especially the right front, so the wear performance will be one of the main evaluation points this evening. We are also expecting some track improvement over the weekend and although it is difficult to know how much improvement we will see, we shall need to take this into consideration when making our recommendations to the teams.”

Full Bridgestone Practice Report  Back to Top

Michelin

Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin motorsport director “Fridays are often relatively uneventful in Formula One terms, but that certainly wasn’t the case today as our partners got to grips with an unfamiliar track. It was interesting to watch drivers experimenting with different lines and teams tackling the myriad problems a new circuit can throw up.
“It is clear that Istanbul Park is a top-class facility. There are several distinctly different types of corner, but teams don’t require the same degree of set-up compromise as they do at somewhere like Montreal, for instance, where there is such a stark contrast between the long, fast straights and a proliferation of slow turns. The layout in Turkey is more balanced.
“Lap times were a little faster than we anticipated, but our pre -race simulations have been very effective and, as in Budapest three weeks ago, Michelin’s partners appear to be in excellent shape as they gear up for tomorrow’s qualifying session.
“The two tyre compounds we have brought to this race are quite different, but that isn’t reflected in their performance. The ‘prime’ is clearly fast and very durable, but the softer ‘option’ tyre might well be used in Sunday’s race, too. Until we have completed today’s analysis, however, it is too soon to draw any firm conclusions.”

Full Michelin Practice Report  Back to Top

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