Team reaction after day one in Suzuka (part 1)

Red Bull Renault

Sebastian Vettel: “We had a trouble free Friday, which is the most important thing, especially on a track like this where you need to get into a rhythm with all the quick corners following each other. The car was reliable and I had a good feeling, the pace looks okay too. The forecast suggests rain, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be competitive in the wet. The conditions have been quite inconsistent during all the wet races that we’ve had so far this year, so it’s hard to know what everyone’s pace will be.”

Mark Webber: “A good day, we couldn’t have asked for much more – we had faultless running and got a lot of mileage. The team put the cars together well and we had a smooth day. The balance of the car feels good although it’s a circuit with lots of different types of corners, so you can’t have everything – you need to work out what the priorities are for the best lap times. We‘re not sure what the weather’s going to do tomorrow, it looks as though it may be a bit wet, but we’ve got good info in the bank, so we’re ready for what happens.”

Renault

Robert Kubica: It’s nice to be in P3 in both sessions, but we have to remember that this is only free practice. We need to wait and see what the weather will bring us tomorrow and try to do our best in all conditions. The forecast is saying there will be quite a lot of rain, so it was important to do a lot of running today and complete all our evaluation ahead of the race, which looks like it might be dry. If it is wet tomorrow, then today will have been our only chance to drive on dry tyres before the race.

Vitaly Petrov: I was quite satisfied with my day because we found a good balance with the car and this is really important for this circuit. In the morning we tried not to take too many risks and do normal runs to help me learn the circuit. In the second free practice we just tried to push a bit more to understand the car and the set-up. We changed a lot and the car feels much better so the team did a good job. But let’s wait and see what happens tomorrow because I think it will be a very tough day.

Technical Debrief with Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer:

What were the track conditions like today?

The track was fine. It’s quite high grip here so there were not too many complaints from the drivers. The wind picked up in the second session, which gave us a little bit of trouble and made the car a bit more difficult to drive, but no real dramas.

What were the main objectives of the day?

With the weather looking very wet for tomorrow, the main objective was to have a really good look at the tyres because we don’t expect we will get a chance to do any dry running tomorrow morning. So we spent a bit longer than normal evaluating the tyres in the second session.

How is the general car balance?

With Robert’s car we are struggling with a little bit of inconsistency, which I’m sure we can work on over night. Vitaly was suffering with some understeer this morning, but his engineers made several changes between the two sessions and improved the car a lot.

How did Vitaly’s learning of the circuit go today?

I think he did a good job. He finished up about half a second away from Robert and we can expect him to close that gap a bit more tomorrow.

Ferrari

Stefano Domenicali: "These first two sessions certainly did not throw up any surprises. We were expecting Red Bull to be very strong and that has proved to be the case, while it is harder to evaluate the McLarens, epecially given what happened this morning with Hamilton. We worked through our programme and now we have to analyse the data and prepare ourselves as well as possible for qualifying and the race. Tomorrow there is a very high chance of rain, therefore anything could happen. We will have to pay great attention to managing all the various situations that could arise. We must remain focussed on our own tasks, without worrying about what the others are doing."

Fernando Alonso: "It is only Friday, so the times today do not really mean much. What we must always keep in mind is that the pecking order between the cars can change significantly in terms of which track we are at: you only have to look at McLaren who were very strong in Spa and Monza, but definitely less so in Budapest and Singapore. So I would say it is best to wait until the end of tomorrow before giving a definite judgement on the situation here in Suzuka. In theory, Red Bull look unbeatable here, as they always have done, except in Monza and also there were various races where come Sunday, they were beaten, so again that’s a reason to wait before drawing any conclusions. Today, we did not put together a perfect lap, so there is some room for improvement. We have to analyse the data to see how to do that, but of course the others will be doing the same. The forecast is for rain tomorrow: if that happens, we must concentrate and avoid making any mistakes, which can cost you a lot in the wet. Then it will be down to luck, as to who finds themselves in the right place at the right time on the right tyre. The aim in qualifying is to be in the top five, then we can see how things go in the race. I wish to welcome Sergio Perez to the Ferrari Driver Academy. I am sure that, like me, he will feel at home in the Ferrari family alongside the other guys in the FDA. I know them all and I can say that the communal Latin culture will help him as it helped me in this my first year in Maranello."

Felipe Massa: "I thought Red Bull would be very strong and maybe they are even more so than I had expected. Having said that, it’s likely we will have a wet qualifying tomorrow, so anything could happen: we must try and be ready to make the most of whatever situation presents itself. The aim is still the same, whether the track is dry or if it rains, which means to qualify as well as possible. The track is pretty hard on tyres because of the many high speed corners, therefore managing them properly will be important during the race. We will use the blown rear wing, as on this track it definitely brings an advantage in performance terms. There is still room to improve the handling of our car, but we can’t really expect any sort of change in terms of performance."

Chris Dyer: "It was a reasonably positive day, during which we completed our programme, without encountering any particular problems. We tested a few new aerodynamic components and the first signs seem favourable. There is still work to do to get the car performance right, especially on new tyres. Furthermore, we must bear in mind that setting a time right from the very first lap might be less important given that tomorrow it is supposed to rain for qualifying: if that happens we can definitely expect an exciting day! With a heavy fuel load, the car’s handling seems quite competitive, which is definitely a positive factor in terms of Sunday’s race."

McLaren Mercedes

Jenson Button: “This morning was pretty tricky; I couldn’t get a balance with the car at all, and was really struggling with understeer through the first sector. You give away so much time when you’ve got understeer through the esses because it’s tougher to get the car to change direction.

“For the afternoon, we made a few changes and the car felt a lot more responsive. We’re quite a bit off the pace of the Red Bulls, but we’ve got to look at getting the best out of the new package that we’ve got.

“And that requires extensive testing, which can take a couple of runs. I don’t think we got the best out of our new parts, but we’ve made some good steps forward. We did a good job today of improving the car, but there’s still more to come. That’s encouraging, we’re just not there yet.

Lewis Hamilton: “I damaged the car in the early laps of the first session. I was only on my second fast lap, and was probably pushing too hard too soon. I didn’t go that wide – it wasn’t that big an off – but the gravel was very slippery at that point. A couple of other drivers had moments there and got away with it. But that’s life.

“The guys in the garage did an incredible job to rebuild the car – they really had to work hard, and they got me out for the last 10 minutes of the second session. They are so supportive in this team: if one person is down, they’ll do their best to lift that person up. That’s what we do as a team.

“I had to run the older rear wing in the afternoon, so I didn’t really get a proper feel for where the car is. And, hopefully, we’ll have a second new rear wing for qualifying and the race. Tomorrow’s another day – and it looks like it’s going to rain, so everybody will have to start again.

“They say bad things come in threes – so after Monza, Singapore and today, I hope this run of bad luck is over and done with.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal: “Lewis’s accident this morning cost us some track time, but we still managed to amass a serious amount of data from both his car, and from Jenson’s more extensive running in both sessions.

“While the team did a fantastic job to get Lewis’s car turned around in time for the final 10 minutes of second practice, due to a shortage of new components, he was unable to run with an optimal bodywork package, which slightly compromised his final pace. But we are already pushing incredibly hard to rectify that, and I’m confident we’ll have new parts here in time for tomorrow.

“Nonetheless, we’ve got a solid basis for the rest of the weekend, and we’ll be focusing on extracting the maximum from the new parts for the remainder of the weekend – something we didn’t quite achieve today due to the breadth of analysis required and the shortfall in run-time that we experienced.”

Mercedes GP

The first practice sessions for the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix got underway today at the Suzuka circuit in dry and warm conditions ahead of the heavy rain showers forecast for qualifying tomorrow.

MERCEDES GP PETRONAS pair Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg completed 47 laps and 35 laps of the 5.807km circuit respectively, loved by drivers for its challenging layout, as they worked on the set-up of their MGP W01 cars.

Michael Schumacher: “It’s a great feeling to be driving this track again. It’s really fun and a great challenge. I have always loved Suzuka and particularly the first sector which is cool and demanding at the same time. If you get it right, you enjoy it big time. I’m pleased with our practice today as the car looks better than I had expected here and I didn’t face any real issues. So now we hope for a clean qualifying tomorrow where we will try to achieve as much as we can.”

Nico Rosberg: “It’s been quite a challenging Friday for me. Unfortunately my morning was hampered by a gearbox issue which cost me some running time at the end of the session which wasn’t ideal. From then on, I just haven’t been as happy with the car here. I had a lot of understeer which we haven’t established the reason for, so we need to look into that overnight. Things started to come together more on the option tyre which gives me hope that we can build on that progress tomorrow. It should be an interesting weekend with the rain so we will try to make the best of that.”

Ross Brawn: “It’s been an interesting Friday as we have worked to learn as much as possible from the dry track before the expected rain arrives this evening. Michael had a positive day with the car running well to allow him to get used to the track again and develop his set-up. Nico had a few challenges with a gearbox issue interrupting his programme this morning and a few concerns with the balance this afternoon. We have a lot of information to work with so we expect to make progress overnight. It could be an interesting qualifying if the rain comes so we’ll need to be on our toes.”

Norbert Haug: “There is certainly room for further improvements after today’s practice sessions but we have definitely experienced more challenging Fridays this year. Our race pace today looked quite reasonable but of course we are still not good enough to fight at the front of the field. The forecast for tomorrow is predicting rain so the order we saw today may change in different conditions. Michael and Nico did a good job today taking into account the current capabilities of our car and our target is to repeat this level of performance tomorrow and on Sunday.”

Force India Mercedes

The FIA Formula One World Championship returned to the Far East this week for round 16 of the 2010 series, the Japanese Grand Prix. Force India’s preparations at the classic Suzuka circuit got off to a promising start with Adrian Sutil recording the fourth quickest time of the opening practice session and the ninth fastest in a busy afternoon. Tonio Liuzzi posted the 16th and 18th quickest times as he tried to find a comfortable balance on his VJM03.

The programme on both cars focussed largely on establishing a baseline set up for the weekend and evaluating the new aero package introduced this race, plus conducting the usual tyre comparison work.

Adrian Sutil: I feel today went quite well. In the morning session I did just one run on the hard tyres as we had a small issue that kept us in the garage for longer than we hoped for, but we fixed it between sessions and got on with a very busy programme in the afternoon. We made a lot of runs to test the fuel levels, the wing settings and run through our normal changes. The car felt good the whole day so there wasn’t really very much to change. We also didn’t have any major problems so overall we can be quite pleased with the progress we’ve made. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, there’s a threat of rain and it should make it a very interesting and exciting qualifying session.

Tonio Liuzzi: It was generally quite a decent day as we did a lot of work, particularly in the afternoon when we did over 30 laps. We are struggling with the balance at the moment with a lack of overall grip and we couldn’t get the best out of the soft tyres when we ran them in FP2. We should be better tomorrow when we’ve looked through all the data and gone a bit deeper into why we haven’t got the ideal set up just yet. The predicted weather will add another dimension so I’m looking forward to getting back on track to have a better day tomorrow.

Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer: A good day’s work from the team today. We evaluated some of the aerodynamic upgrades that we have brought to this event and carried out our normal Friday preparation. The Bridgestone tyres are working very well, and we are going in the right direction for the balance of the car. The wind picked up a bit this afternoon, affecting the first sector, and Tonio suffered a systems problem on his new tyre outing so we know there a little more to come. Tomorrow is a different day, but it’s been a solid start to the weekend.