Team reaction after day one in Monza (part 1)

Red Bull Renault

Sebastian Vettel: “It was quite good today. It’s a Friday, so the laptimes vary and you don’t know what the fuel loads are, but I’m quite confident. It looks better for us
here than it did a year ago. Obviously here is no KERS this year, which helps us. We need to be patient and we’ll see the true pace tomorrow. McLaren is extremely quick and their cars went off a couple of times, so I don’t know if they had a clean afternoon. Ferrari was quick in the afternoon too, it will be tight. It’s a short lap here with a lot of short straights and not so many corners – the gap between cars will be very small.”

Mark Webber: “I lost water pressure in P2 and had to stop the car, which compromised our running a little bit, but we still got some good information today. The car is going pretty well. I have to find a little bit of lap time myself, but the car is performing and I’m quite happy. We’ll see how we go tomorrow, but we’re in the ballpark which is nice. Ferrari look strong as well.”

Ferrari

Stefano Domenicali: "My heart missed a beat when Felipe ended up in the gravel. It was lucky he did not end up in the barrier, as his car was going pretty quickly at the time. It was a shame, as he was improving his lap time, even if we know that Friday times count for little or nothing. The important thing is that we acquired a substantial amount of data which we will now use to prepare our cars as well as possible. This is an important event for us, both because it is our home race and because we are all aware of the situation in both championships. We will try and do the maximum, for ourselves and for our fans, although we know we are up against stiff opposition."

Fernando Alonso: "We are pleased with what we achieved in these two free practice sessions. We tried different aerodynamic configurations and now we must study the data carefully to make the right choices for tomorrow and Sunday. This track requires a low level of aerodynamic downforce, but you need to find the right compromise, especially so as not to prejudice stability under braking: it’s true that top speed is important, but it is not everything. Between the two sessions, we made some changes on the car which seem to have moved us in the right direction, but we must keep in mind that we ran with various difference fuel levels. We have seen before that Friday’s results are very often turned on their head on Saturday, therefore I definitely don’t want to make any predictions. We have to focus on ourselves and do our utmost in qualifying and especially on Sunday, in the race. It will not be easy, because once again, Red Bull is proving to be very competitive and McLaren seems to be as strong as predicted."

Felipe Massa: "At the end of the second session, I tried to copy Kimi and do a bit of rallying...Joking apart, I was really lucky when I went off the track. I was heading for my best time, when I found myself in Michael’s wake at the Parabolica and went off: I kept the accelerator pressed down in the hope I would manage to avoid hitting the barrier and I managed it, so I came straight back to the pits. Unfortunately, the car was slightly damaged, so I had to miss out on the final part of our programme. However, overall, it has been a good day in which we constantly improved. We had a lot of work to get through and at the start we struggled a bit, but then we found a good set-up and in the end I was reasonably happy with my car. We learned a lot about the handling of the F10 and now we have plenty of data to analyse to prepare as well as possible for what is such an important event, this being the Scuderia’s home race."

Chris Dyer: "We are reasonably pleased with how things went for this first day of the Italian Grand Prix. We had established a very intensive work schedule and we completed the bulk of it, but for Felipe’s last run, when he went off the track. Fortunately, Fernando managed to complete that part of the work with no trouble, so we will be able to use the data he acquired when we tackle the analysis which awaits us this afternoon and evening. We tested various aerodynamic configurations, albeit always using the blown rear wing. Studying the times, we don’t look that bad, but we have to evaluate these results, taking into account the usual unknown factors and keeping in mind that some teams might not have shown all their cards: we will not know the truth until tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock, when qualifying is over."

McLaren Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton: “We had two good practice sessions today. This morning, in P1, we ran with the higher-downforce package, and the car felt good, but it wasn’t as fast along the straights as we’ve experienced in the past.

“During P2, I was using a different downforce package to Jenson – running with a lower-downforce rear wing and without the F-duct – so we need to go through all the data tonight to decide which approach works best. Both configurations were quick, so we’re not in a bad position.

“The two different packages felt fairly similar – one is slower down the straights but quicker through the corners, and the other is quicker down the straights but slower through the corners – and they pretty much balance themselves out over the course of a lap.

“As I say, we haven’t yet decided what to run tomorrow; it’s about determining which is better on high fuel, and whether there’s more potential in one over the other. We’ll decide this evening.

“I’m not totally sure how I managed to damage the front-wing endplate this afternoon – I may have clipped one of the kerbs, but it was easily fixed and not a problem.”

Jenson Button: “Lewis and I were trying out different levels of downforce today – gathering data to see what works best around here. I stayed with the F-duct and higher-downforce package, and was reasonably happy.

“The day started well for me, but as we changed more things I grew just a bit less happy with the car. In general, however, it’s working well – there are still a few improvements we need to make to be completely happy, but that’s mostly tweaking rather than making big changes.

“We have a lot of data to go through, so it will be a busy night tonight. But we’re pretty competitive with both packages, which is positive because it means the car is working efficiently. Our car is mechanically strong, so we just need to confirm what downforce level to run.

“The team are very open to the decisions the drivers take, and Lewis and I will be able to choose the package that we feel is right for us – but it won’t just be a driver decision, it will be made with our engineers and the team management.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal: “Coming to a high-speed circuit like Monza without the benefit of pre-race testing really sharpens your game. Today, we spent the day running two significantly different bodywork iterations, trying both high- and low-downforce configurations in an effort to understand their effects – not only on a flying lap but across the course of an entire race.

“It’s pleasing to report that both packages appear competitive. Our aim now is to comprehensively analyse the data we generated today in order to find the optimum path for each driver over the course of the rest of the weekend.

“Given the amount of data, and the parity of each package, that’s no easy task – but, as always, I’m entirely confident that our engineering team will make the right decisions, and that we’ll be in the hunt for the remainder of the weekend.”

Williams Cosworth

Sam Michael, Technical Director: Today was a good day’s work from the team to get through all of our programme, which included checking new aero parts, set-up and evaluating drag level. We had one issue in the morning with a gearbox input shaft failure on Rubens’ car that cost him P1, but he recovered well in P2 to get through the items he wanted to test. On Nico’s car, we ran a solid program all day. Now we’re looking at set-up for tomorrow afternoon and we expect it will be a tight session.

Rubens Barrichello: Obviously we had a little problem this morning and lost a bit of track time, but we caught up well this afternoon. In summary, we look good. That said, we will have to work hard to maintain our relative position, so I am pleased, but I am taking nothing for granted.

Nico Hulkenberg: It was a very positive Friday as far as I am concerned and I am very happy with the car right now. Hopefully it will be more of the same tomorrow and we will be able to put both cars inside the top ten. I think we’re looking pretty competitive and we need to keep up the momentum that we have found today.

Renault

Robert Kubica: "Monza is an unusual circuit because of the aero levels we run and also the feeling for the drivers. We have to get used to the car with low downforce - although using the f-duct means that the change is not as extreme as in the past, because we can run with more wing. It’s still difficult to get the braking points and also to use the kerbs in the right way, especially because they have been changed so we are not able to jump over them as much as before. Overall, we seem to be in our normal position, but we need to analyse the data tonight to see the areas in which we can improve."

Vitaly Petrov: "Today went okay for me, but it was a learning day to get used to the lower downforce levels we use here in Monza, which make the car quite interesting to drive. You can feel the car moving a lot more, so you have to be very precise with your driving and not make any small mistakes. Unfortunately, I lost the final part of the second session because of a problem with the brakes, but overall the car was running well. We still need to find a few tenths to get inside the top ten because the gaps are very small here, but I am sure we can make some good improvements overnight."

Technical Debrief with Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer

The team tested the f-duct on both cars today. What did you conclude?

We ran the f-duct on both cars in both sessions today. On Robert’s car this afternoon, we also tried using different downforce levels, and we must evaluate the results before making our decision on the ultimate configuration we will run tomorrow. We also monitored what other teams were doing, and saw some running with and without the f-duct, which is something that we will have to take into account. But the decision will be driven by our own data.

This afternoon was significantly warmer than the morning. Did that have an impact on the programme?

The circuit temperatures were much higher for the second session, and the wind had picked up a bit, too, but it didn’t have a huge effect. The lap times were pretty similar to this morning, which probably means that the circuit had rubbered in more, but also that it lost some grip with the higher temperatures. Although we have seen rain here in the past few days, no more is forecast for the rest of the weekend.

Did the day run smoothly for both drivers?

We took a fairly typical approach for Monza. We have to keep an eye on our top speeds much more here than at other circuits, to ensure we are competitive with the quickest cars on the straights, and we also did tyre comparisons as well as running with both low and high fuel loads. In terms of performance, Vitaly lost running time because of a brake problem at the end of the session, while Robert had traffic on his fastest laps. I am confident that there’s more performance to come tomorrow.

Mercedes GP

The final European race weekend of the season began today at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in northern Italy.

Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher focused on evaluating the set-up and balance of their MGP W01 cars which ran in a special low-downforce configuration required for the high-speed nature of the Monza circuit.

Completing 59 laps and 55 laps respectively, Nico and Michael finished in the day in tenth and 14th positions.

Nico Rosberg: "Today was ok and the car is generally working well which meant that we could do some useful fine-tuning of our set-up. The tyres seem straightforward and I was happy with my long runs and the consistency that we were able to achieve. I had an issue with understeer through the faster parts of the track so we need to try to resolve that overnight. Our top speed looks reasonable so tomorrow will be about extracting the maximum from the car at its current level."

Michael Schumacher: "Monza has always been a great track to drive and from the sensations and the emotions that I experienced out there today, it feels just like it did over the many years that I have raced here previously. Our performance today does not look too bad, especially in the first sector where we worked a lot on top speed, and look quite good. We are using our F-duct and it worked well given that the benefits on this track, where you have to use a small rear wing, are naturally much smaller than on other circuits. I am looking forward to what will hopefully be an enjoyable weekend."

Ross Brawn: "We’ve had a reasonable start today with the car and our specific aero package working pretty much as we had expected. Nico and Michael achieved consistent running throughout the day which enabled us to get through our test programme including work on the F-duct. We have a few issues to resolve overnight but it has been a decent start to the weekend."

Norbert Haug: "Our lap times in race trim looked not too bad today. Our target is to achieve reasonable grid positions tomorrow with both cars and then have a good and consistent race on Sunday which will hopefully see Nico and Michael in the points again."