Team reaction after day one in Valencia (part 2)

Williams Cosworth

Sam Michael, Technical Director: “That was a productive day for us. We ran a new blown rear wing design on both cars at various stages throughout the day and will now check the data to decide what to run tomorrow. We also tested some new aero and mechanical parts, all of which delivered positive results. In the background, we carried out our usual programme of tyre evaluations, cooling checks and brake testing, all of which went smoothly.”

Rubens Barrichello: “We had a pretty much straight forward day during which we tested various things and they seem to work better. It’s the first time we’ve been in the top ten on a Friday; we can’t read too much into that, but at least it tells us that we can be competitive. The main aim tomorrow is to get into Q3.”

Nico Hulkenberg: “Quite a difficult Friday for me. P2 wasn’t really to my liking. I struggled with the balance of the car and I didn’t get a good lap on the option tyre. We need to analyse the data now and hopefully hook it all together for a good qualifying tomorrow.”

Sauber Ferrari

Kamui Kobayashi: "We completed a huge programme today and everything went very well. With the new aero package we now have to work to get the balance right. It is getting reasonable, but we have to analyse the data and I’m sure there is more to come. In the morning I found the track less dirty than expected. However, in the morning tyre degradation was an issue, but not anymore in the afternoon."

Pedro de la Rosa: "We made a lot of changes to the car during the day to prepare for tomorrow’s qualifying. The main focus was to work on the braking performance to get the car stable under braking. Both tyres worked quite well on the warm asphalt, and I don’t expect anything like the issues we had in Canada. For me it was the first time driving on this track. It took me a few laps to learn it, especially the many braking points, but I quickly liked it."

James Key, Technical Director: "We had no technical problems with the cars today, which was good because we had two very busy sessions. We worked on adapting the set-up of the car to the new aero package. This is the first step to make the car easier to drive. Fundamentally we have found some directions we can follow for tomorrow, but we have to analyse all the data tonight and see what steps we can make. The consistency from lap to lap needs a bit of work. If we look at the sector times they don’t really reflect the lap times, so we have to make sure the drivers can get the best out of the car over one lap. We made progress in some areas but we have work to do in others."

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Sebastien Buemi: “We had a trouble free day, which is always important, so I am happy with that. It was an interesting day, because between the morning and the afternoon, we saw the biggest improvement in lap time that we have had so far this season. That makes life quite difficult, because as the grip improved very quickly, you had to find the confidence to make use of it immediately, which is different to what we are used to. We have a reasonably good understanding of tyre behaviour after doing the long stint. Now we have to see where we can improve for tomorrow and overall the work we did today was not too bad.”

Jaime Alguersuari: “In the morning we did a useful test on the brakes, however, I preferred the previous system, which we went back to for the afternoon, therefore, FP1 did not mean much, but as the track conditions improved a lot for the afternoon, that was not a problem. In FP2, the car felt quite good and I was getting a much better feeling with the brakes, which are very important here, because on this track you can gain a lot of time through your braking. It was particularly good on the long runs, so I am expecting a lot from tomorrow, as we improved the car significantly from the morning to the afternoon and there is the potential to improve still more.”

Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): “A trouble free day for both cars, which meant we were able to complete our entire work programme: it was a mix of race preparation, while also looking at qualifying. As always here, the grip level was very low in the morning, followed by a very significant improvement in the second session. Now we have to study all the data we have gathered in order to try and improve our single lap performance for tomorrow’s qualifying.”

Lotus Cosworth

A special day in Valencia for Lotus Racing as the cars of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen took to the track for Friday practice sporting one-off engine covers bearing the “500 Races” logo, celebrating the 500th Grand Prix the Lotus marque has taken part in. The team ran exactly 100 trouble free laps in total, with Heikki finishing the session 19th, and Jarno just behind in 20th after going out on track in chassis T127-04 for the first time.

Heikki Kovalainen: “I feel really good. It’s been an excellent Friday. We’ve made really good progress with the car, and every set up change we made seemed to be pushing us in the right direction, and in the end the tyres seemed to be working well over the long run. The track itself is good, it’s nice – a semi street circuit, but with a little more room than Monaco! It’s smooth, with quite a good grip level and all in all it’s quite good fun.

“I did arrive late today because of the French strikes - we had to drive down from Geneva and arrived early this morning. But I feel fine - it’s just one night with a little less sleep than usual, so it’s no big deal. My physio Petri and I shared the driving, so I feel absolutely fine.

“For Qualifying tomorrow, we’re going to try to push it to the maximum. Our aim is to get closer to the back of the established teams as much as we possibly can so I’m always pushing, always to the maximum, and let’s see where we are tomorrow afternoon!”

Jarno Trulli: 18 laps, best time 1.47.285, 22nd / FP2: 30 laps, best time 1.42.993, 20th “It was a better day for me today after some of the luck I’ve been having. I had one or two gremlins, but it was a good day to shakedown the new chassis properly and make sure everything was working well. We got a good idea of where we want to be on the setup and the direction for Saturday and Sunday, so I think this was much better for me. On track there was good grip out there this afternoon, and the car felt good, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “It was a good day for us. Obviously the first session was dominated by tyres and the condition of the track, with a lot of graining on the fronts, but, as expected, the track cleaned up and we were able to get through the whole program with no real issues on either car. We’ve got a lot of data from today and I think we’re where we expected to be, but I think there’s more to come from the car, so I’m optimistic about our performance over the weekend.”

Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “I’ll be in Spain tomorrow to join Clive Chapman, his family and the whole team to enjoy this momentous race. I wanted to come in today, but couldn’t get a seat on AirAsiaX so I’ve had to jump on board one of the competition’s planes to get me in, but I’m very excited about the weekend ahead, particularly after the very solid start today. It’s been good to see our reliability return on both cars today, and I’m hopeful we can put in a good showing tomorrow and on Sunday.”

Virgin Racing Cosworth

Virgin Racing’s European Grand Prix got underway in Valencia today with the first two Free Practice sessions for Sunday’s 57-lap race on this 5.419km street circuit.

The opening practice session began on a dusty track in bright sunshine and with an ambient temperature of 25°C. It was a positive morning of running for both Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi with the mechanical developments introduced for this race clearly representing a positive step forward.

This afternoon got off to a good start but halfway through the session Timo suffered a gearbox problem which curtailed his running after 14 laps and he was unable to run the Option tyre because of this. Lucas had a better second session but was unable to get the most from the Option tyre when he ran it towards the end of the session.

Timo Glock: “It has been a reasonable day for us apart from the gearbox problem that we had this afternoon. Apart from that the car didn’t feel too bad. It’s difficult to comment on our pace because I lost some time at the end of the session and didn’t get my Option run, but in general I’m happy with the first laps of the weekend and we’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”

Lucas di Grassi: “Today was a very good day and we achieved everything that we needed to from our programme. We didn’t experience any major problems, so I’m pleased with the work we have done so far and I’m looking forward to seeing how we can improve for tomorrow.”

Nick Wirth, Technical Director: “Timo lost fifth gear in the middle of the second Free Practice session, which spoiled what was otherwise a very satisfying day. We really have been focusing on understanding our first major performance upgrade of the year and it seems to be giving us the sort of advantages we had seen in our research. The team has done a good job getting a solid body of knowledge around it, and I think we have enough data to get a good qualifying and race set-up. In theory the car should be better again when we start running low fuel, so I’m expecting to see some progress in qualifying tomorrow. Our attentions this evening will be focused on understanding the nature of Timo’s gearbox failure and preparing the cars for what should be an interesting day tomorrow.”

HRT F1 Cosworth

It was the first day of the second home race for Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team at the Valencia Street Circuit. In the sunny first session, test and reserve driver Christian Klien was called into action for the second time this season for the Spanish team. He did 14 laps and a best lap time of 1.47.343. Bruno Senna was running in the second car and ended up 21st (1.47.123). Due to a drive boot damage, the Brazilian had to stop at the end of the first practice, while the Austrian had a gear box problem. In the afternoon, Karun Chandhok was back in the car again and did 21 laps, clocking a best time of 1.44.566. Bruno Senna added 24 more laps and was able to improve his morning lap times

Dr Colin Kolles, Team Principal: “Today’s results were not significant for us because we concentrated on our works for tomorrow and Sunday. In the morning session, Christian Klien had a gearbox problem and Bruno Senna a problem with a drive boot. As a precaution, we investigated the problem Christian had in the morning on Bruno’s car and that’s why Bruno started late into the second session. But at the end of practice two, we could already work on the program for tomorrow and for Sunday.”

Karun Chandhok: “It was quite a tricky day for us. The first two sectors were good but then we had a hydraulic problem in sector 3 on the option tyre run and therefore no representative ultimate lap time for me. We will have to look at Bruno to judge our pace and it definitely looks like we could be in decent shape to compete with Virgin cars tomorrow. The tyre degradation wasn’t as bad as Montreal and the option tyre was more consistent as expected. The track will improve a bit more tomorrow so hopefully we can have a productive third practice and prepare well for qualifying and race in front of our team’s home crowd.

Bruno Senna: “The first session was difficult because of the track conditions. It was very slippery and therefore not easy to drive. But the grip level improved in the afternoon and the lap times got better. We could do our quickest lap on the option tyres and now we have to focus on the qualifying.”

Christian Klien, Reserve and test driver: “It was a new circuit for me and in the first laps I had to learn the track, which was very dusty in the beginning. But the conditions got better and I could improve my lap times. In the end, it is disappointing as I only could do 14 laps in my second session for Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team. We had a gearbox problem on the car and that’s why I had to stop before the end of the session.”