Team reaction after day one in Spa (part 2)

Williams Cosworth

Sam Michael, Technical Director: With wet running in both of today’s practice sessions, we had to re-prioritise the test items we had on our list, but the rain would have affected all of the teams today. This is Spa as well, so we’re used to it here! There’s a reasonable chance that the remainder of the weekend will be wet, so we were also saving tyres throughout the day. We are now working on strategy and our ideal qualifying and race set-up.

Rubens Barrichello: Today was a classic Spa scenario with the weather and I love it because it throws everything up in the air! The car is fine, but like everyone, we had neither sufficient dry or wet running to really optimise in either condition, which leaves some question marks for us and I am sure everyone else, to resolve, but we had a productive day nevertheless.

Nico Hulkenberg: Of course it has been a typical Spa day with very mixed weather, but it was been quite alright for us. The most notable issue has been the intermediates and the full wets being soft for the track here and degrading early. Other than that, the day has run pretty well and we seem to have found good downforce settings for the circuit. I think we were P8 although it was not on the sheets because of the red flag, so it is all positive today.

Mercedes GP

After the four-week summer break, Formula One returned to action today at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium.

The first practice session began in very wet conditions with Michael and Nico completing a couple of exploratory runs before a heavy shower midway through the session brought all the cars back into their garages. With the track conditions unlikely to improve significantly, the team called an early end to the session to begin preparations for the afternoon.

Despite further rain during the break, the second session proved drier with the track suitable for intermediate tyres within the first half hour. The track continued to dry out with Michael and Nico able to go out on slicks before the end of the day.

Michael Schumacher: "It’s obviously a beautiful feeling to be back on this track which is still great to drive. It’s also beautiful because I have a lot of good memories linked to Spa. But this doesn’t help a great deal with the situation that we are facing here and having a ten place penalty makes it difficult to go into the weekend with big hopes for a good result. The weather might help a little by mixing up the field and so I hope it does not change too much over the race weekend."

Nico Rosberg: "It’s been a difficult day for us as we have been trying to get our revised parts for the car to work. The weather conditions have complicated our programme and whilst we’ve tried a lot of different things, it’s been tough to get any consistent feedback. I’ve suffered with understeer all day and really struggled with the balance on the wet tyres. The inters were better and it’s difficult to say for the slicks really. I was quite far off with my car balance with the dry tyres so that didn’t help. So a tricky start to the weekend for us and we need to sit down overnight and try to solve the problems."

Ross Brawn: "It was a very challenging day but then these types of changeable conditions may provide the opportunities that we can take advantage of this weekend.
Nico’s day was hindered by a few car issues which will be resolved by tomorrow whilst Michael was slightly happier with his progress."

Norbert Haug: "A difficult first day for everybody with changing weather conditions which we all are familiar with at Spa and which seem to belong to this circuit like Eau Rouge and La Source. It seems that our upgrades can improve the car but we need tomorrow’s practice session to get more running with the parts.
The weather forecast is predicting rain which doesn’t help when our target is to put new parts on the cars. However even in these tricky conditions we can continue to learn and make progress."

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Jaime Alguersuari: “It was actually good fun driving today, as we experienced every track condition possible. From what we saw today, I will be hoping for a wet race on Sunday, as I think we are more competitive in these conditions, giving us a better chance to get into the points. Because of the rain today, there is a question mark over tyre performance in the dry on high fuel loads, but that is the same for everyone. The car felt quite good in both the dry and the wet, but we still need more data on the tyre front. Because of the different conditions with teams running various types of tyre at different times, it is very difficult to understand the order amongst us, so I think we can expect another very interesting day tomorrow.”

Sebastien Buemi: “We had an issue on the gearbox in the morning, but in reality we did not lose much running time because it was raining so hard at that time. At least it meant I saved the wear on my rain tyres. In the second session, when it dried up, it was difficult to get a true picture relating to our performance, as everyone was trying something different. The important thing now is to do a good job of analyzing all our data, in terms of car set-up and the difference between the two slick compounds and see what we can do for tomorrow. In the dry, I was quite happy on the hard compound, but with the option, I did not get the tyres to work properly, so I did not get the most out of them and we will have to look at that in tomorrow morning’s session.”

Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): “A typical day at Spa in terms of the weather. In the morning we had a gearbox issue with Sebastien’s car, but luckily, as conditions were very bad, we did not lose so much track time. In the morning, we only used the extreme rain tyres and then in the afternoon, we got the chance to run the intermediates and both types of dry tyre, so altogether it was quite a good day in terms of collecting a useful amount of data. The forecast for the rest of the weekend is predicting more mixed conditions and wet weather would definitely suit us best for the race, so that is what we are hoping for.”

Lotus Cosworth

Lotus Racing took up where they left off at the last race in Hungary, with Friday’s Belgian Grand Prix practice sessions ending up with Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli topping the new team’s time sheets in very mixed conditions on track.

Jarno Trulli: “It feels good to be back. It’s always nice to be back on track, especially in Spa as it’s such a good track. Practice today went very well for me and I’m pleased with where we ended up. Unfortunately on the last run this afternoon I was blocked by another car which prevented me from going quicker with the same set of tyres as everyone else, but before that I was looking pretty good, so I feel confident for tomorrow.”

Heikki Kovalainen: “It wasn’t too bad today considering the weather, but at least everyone was in the same position. There were no big problems - the car seemed to work well in all the conditions, but it’s always hard to draw a conclusion when the weather keeps changing and teams keep running different tyres. So you can’t read too much into the times today. The track itself feels fine – it’s a great track, and in the dry it will be really good. Fingers crossed for blue skies tomorrow!”

Dieter Gass, Sporting Director: “It was a difficult day today with the mixed and changing conditions. This morning’s run was pretty much meaningless, because of the weather, but at least it was better in the afternoon. We got a bit of dry running in in FP2 which gave us a chance to look at the tyres, but with the continuously changing conditions it was difficult to work on the set up. We’ll look at the data now and make a call on the set ups, downforce levels and ratios that we are going to run tomorrow, so I think we’ve got quite a bit of work to do this evening. Whatever happens, I’m confident we can maintain our position ahead of the new teams if the conditions stay stable. In the mixed conditions anything can happen, and you need a bit of luck to keep up the momentum, so let’s see what happens.”

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “Obviously the weather today made it an interesting first day for everyone. The first session was very wet and we just ran on the full wets. In the second session we switched to the inters and then managed to run both sets of dry tyres, but the changing conditions make any meaningful work or comparisons very difficult. But I’m reasonably happy with where we are and look forward to some dry weather over the weekend.”

Virgin Racing Cosworth

Mixed weather conditions are not entirely unexpected at Spa and the first day of practice for the 2010 Belgian Grand Prix was true to form. It started wet, got a bit drier, and then got really wet. This continued in the same vein until towards the end of free practice two when it finally became practical to use slicks.

Both Virgin Racing cars ran faultlessly throughout the day and in the first session the team concentrated on finding a good wet setup, only running on Bridgestone’s Extreme Wet tyres. The second session ended early for Timo when he touched a white line and went off, but Lucas was able to work through to the end of session and accumulated a good set of data for the engineers to work with overnight.

Timo Glock: “A good morning. I would say the first free practice was pretty good, we had no problems and the car felt quite okay in wet conditions. Then I unfortunately made a mistake in Free Practice 2 – I touched the white line, lost the car and hit the tyre barrier quite badly and the session was over quite quickly for me. But in general it didn’t look too bad and I hope it will stay wet for the whole weekend as the car felt good in the wet. I was happy with it so let’s see how it goes tomorrow”

Lucas di Grassi: “A very productive day. We were able to run the car on all the types of tyre available – extreme wet, intermediate, prime and option. The forecast is the main doubt for the weekend but I’m happy with the progress we’ve made. I think we have covered pretty much every situation and after a problem-free Friday I’m looking forward to a good weekend for us.”

Nick Wirth, Technical Director: “An interesting day in some interesting conditions! The morning was quite productive with both drivers trying some different setup solutions for the wet conditions. Timo’s afternoon started in a promising way but his crash early in the session will require a change of monocoque tonight as there is some damage that can’t be repaired at the circuit. Lucas had a more productive afternoon, and chose to run his option tyres earlier in mixed conditions and the primes at the end, in contrast to most of the others. The drivers are feeling quite confident so we should be ready for round two with the Spa weather tomorrow!”

HRT F1 Cosworth

Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team is back into action in Spa-Francorchamps with the typical weather conditions in the Ardennes. After a wet and rainy first practice session in the morning, Bruno Senna finished in position 22 (2.07.737) and Sakon Yamamoto (2.10.507) was 24th. In the afternoon, it dried up and the track got quicker. Consequently, both Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team drivers improved and clocked their best lap times of 1.55.751 for Bruno Senna (22nd) and 1.56.039 for Sakon Yamamoto (23rd) in the last minutes of the session.

Dr Colin Kolles, Team Principal: “It was a useful day for our team with the typical weather here in Spa under difficult conditions. We could run many laps and both drivers got a lot of track time. This was very important, as it prepared us for racing on the wet track, but also when it is drying up. Sakon Yamamoto stopped his car at the end of the second practice because of an alarm message displayed on his dash board and to avoid further damage. We got a lot of experience today and we will see, what awaits for us tomorrow.”

Sakon Yamamoto, Race driver: “We could get a lot of data in both sessions today under wet and drying up conditions. We fulfilled our testing program and I could get more experience in the car. Before the end of the session in the afternoon, I had to stop the car when I got an alarm message on my display. Now, we are looking forward to the qualifying and we will see, what tomorrow brings.”

Bruno Senna, Race driver: “Today it was tricky with a wet practice in the morning and a dry one in the afternoon. It was a good experience to run with all types of tyres and we got a lot of good data out of it. In the wet, we were competitive and in the dry we hope to pick up the pace. We will see what the conditions are tomorrow in terms of finding the right set-up for the car in qualifying and the race.”