09 September: Belgian Grand Prix - Friday Practice
Report - Jordan Grand
Prix
Jordan Grand Prix drivers, Tiago Monteiro, Narain Karthikeyan and Nicolas Kiesa began the weekend with a
smooth-running first Free Practice this morning at the challenging and legendary 6.976-km circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. All three
drivers had the advantage of driving on a familiar track and started their various programmes such as Bridgestone tyre evaluation
and finding a right chassis car balance to cope with Spa’s high-speed corners. Unfortunately tricky track conditions and heavy
rain prevented them from completing any lap in the afternoon. The team is now hoping that the weather will improve for the rest of
the weekend and look forward to making further progress for what should be an exciting and possibly unpredictable race on Sunday.
TEAM
QUOTES ON THE BELGIAN GRAND PRIX FRIDAY FREE PRACTICE SESSIONS
NARAIN KARTHIKEYAN “This morning I was running
the EJ15B car for the first time during a Grand Prix weekend and it was problem free. I did a good job but the circuit conditions
were constantly changing. I cannot say much about the afternoon, except that a boat would have been better than an F1 car.”
TIAGO
MONTEIRO “It is quite difficult to describe how the car was feeling considering the small number of laps we have completed
today. This morning we just checked if the car was ok and wanted to do our complete normal Friday programme but the track conditions
did not allow us to do this. The tyre choice for the rest of the weekend will therefore not be an easy one. However, I am pretty
confident we will make a good choice.”
NICOLAS KIESA “It was quite difficult this morning as I was one of the
first to go out in half dry, half wet conditions and also because I have not driven here for three years. I had therefore to get
used to the circuit and its difficult conditions. But all in all, we had a pretty good practice and I have to say that from the
start, the car felt very good. The best thing about the car was even though the circuit was getting dryer and dryer, its behaviour
did not change. It was very nice and I felt confident to push it harder. We have managed to test some tyres and we have a
half-decent evaluation. If I was a race driver, I would have a 85% idea of which tyres we should use and this despite the fact we
did not run in the second practice.”
ADRIAN BURGESS, SPORTING DIRECTOR “Everything went ok this morning but we
could not do a lot of work because of the weather conditions. We did our tyre blanket comparison this afternoon and all the tyre
blankets worked perfectly well. We will wait until tomorrow to see what the weather brings.”
