Team reaction after day one in Montréal (part 2)

Williams Cosworth

Sam Michael, Technical Director: We tested new aero components today and everything worked well, so all of these will all be carried forward for the race for both cars. Unfortunately we had a problem with the hydraulics on Ruben’s car, the exact cause of which we have not yet determined. This was quite costly, losing almost half of the second practice session this afternoon and we will be relying on his experience to catch up. In summary, it looks like tyre management will be the key to this weekend.

Nico Hulkenberg: The circuit here is so narrow compared to places like Turkey. It’s great and much more exciting to race close to the wall as opposed to 200 metres away. In terms of progress today, we got through the programme but didn’t end up with exactly the results we wanted. I am struggling to find balance with the car, but I am confident we will achieve something here.

Rubens Barrichello: We have quite a lot of new development parts for this circuit which has definitely made the car more competitive. I hope that with this progression forward that we can do well here, especially as this our only visit to North America and we have plenty of guests and sponsors supporting us.

Sauber Ferrari

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is kind of famous for its tricky grip level which makes setup work for the Canadian Grand Prix difficult. Neither Pedro de la Rosa nor Kamui Kobayashi is yet happy with the balance of their respective cars. But both are confident of improving on Saturday, as they covered a lot of mileage today and gathered all the necessary data.

Pedro de la Rosa: “It was a difficult day. We tried to find a good balance for the car on a very slippery track, which is not easy. But I think we have a clear understanding of the tyre compounds and can improve the car after we analyse the data tonight.“

Kamui Kobayashi: “Although the track improved a bit compared to this morning, the lack of grip was a major problem and both tyre compounds degraded very quickly. We had hard sessions today, but we do have time to improve the car for tomorrow.“

James Key, Technical Director: “The conditions were very difficult to start with this morning. It was a case of running the car in the medium-downforce configuration. Kamui had to learn the circuit today, and for Pedro it was about getting a feeling for the car with the lower downforce level. We are lacking general grip at the moment. When it’s there, the car looks reasonable, when it’s not it turns into a difficult situation. We need to look into how we can maximise the general grip of the car by not only analysing where we are with the aero setting, but mechanically as well and see if we can improve the car over one lap. The race pace looks reasonable, but we have to see how the tyres are performing. So we have some work to do.”

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Sebastien Buemi: “I have never driven here before and it takes some time to learn the track, dealing with the lack of grip from the surface and being careful of the walls that are so close to you. Therefore, it is hard to find the limit as the car is moving around a lot. You need to know the circuit really well before you can push hard. At least we had a clean day with no technical issues which is important for the rest of the weekend. Now, having learned my way round, I can expect a better day tomorrow, although we don’t seem very competitive at the moment.”
First Practice Session - Best lap 1.20.320, pos. 16th, 27 laps
Second Practice Session - Best lap 1.19.168, pos. 17th, 32 laps

Jaime Alguersuari: “Another new track for me and it is a difficult one to learn because there was very little grip today and the walls are very close. I need to do more laps and tomorrow I will be in a position to push harder, with what I have learned so far. I think the lap times will come and the important thing now is to stay calm. We have seen quite a bit of degradation, which will be a factor in the race. For qualifying, I think we have the potential to do well in Q2. In terms of brakes, which are important here, it was quite good and I know we can learn a bit more now by studying the data regarding the braking points and the retardation rates on the pedal. As long as it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I expect to improve a lot before Sunday.”
First Practice Session - Best lap 1.20.823, pos. 18th, 28 laps
Second Practice Session - Best lap 1.19.274, pos. 18th, 41 laps

Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): “We ran a usual Friday programme, completing everything on the job list, with much of the focus on getting used to the low level of downforce and to compare the two types of tyre compound. I think we are heading into a very interesting weekend, because the track seems to be harder on the tyres than we had initially expected, so we have seen everyone in the field having quite high tyre degradation, which should make for a good race. We also evaluated different levels of downforce. Everything went smoothly and now we must work on improving the car balance for tomorrow.”

Lotus Cosworth

Back in Canada for Lotus Racing’s debut at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and Friday’s practice sessions saw Lotus Racing comfortably ahead of their new team rivals, and edging ever closer to the midfield. Heikki Kovalainen completed his entire program and finished FP2 less than seven tenths behind Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso, but Jarno Trulli suffered an electrical problem that curtailed his running in both sessions.

Heikki Kovalainen: “Both sessions were pretty good today. The circuit obviously has not been used for a little while and it was quite dirty to start with, and even at the end of the second session the grip level was still quite low, but it’s definitely improving though! It felt a bit like a Rally Finland stage first thing this morning, so it could only get better from there!

“I think the team did a really good job today, improving the balance and keeping us going in the right direction all the time. The low downforce package seems to be working really well, which is very encouraging, and again, we’re not far away from the Toro Rossos. Maybe tomorrow in qualifying, I’ll be able to have a go at challenging them, and see what happens. We’re going to focus on keeping the rear of the car under control, and I think we are getting there with that, so, from my side of the garage, things are working out really well."

Jarno Trulli: “It’s been a difficult day but I’ll move on from this and I still feel positive – after all, this is still our first season, and we’re only eight races in. I had a few laps, but not enough to get a setup I felt comfortable with. I could feel that both the hard and the soft tyres suffered bad degradation, but after today I want to thank the team for working very hard to fix the problems on my car, and we’ll see if the luck will change tomorrow.”

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “It was difficult today – a couple of reliability problems curtailed Jarno’s running, but with Heikki we completed everything we wanted to, so that’s a plus. The tyre performance is always difficult on the first day here, but especially so today, so we’ll have to see how that develops tomorrow – it could be interesting. Overall, Heikki’s performance was good, but apologies to Jarno for the issues – despite those, I’m sure we can get both cars up where we want them tomorrow.”

Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “It was obviously a bit of a tough session out there, a dirty track and a couple of issues for Jarno, but we still showed we keep picking up speed, finishing FP2 just over three seconds off the outright pace. Both Jarno and Heikki are upbeat, and the main aim now is to bring both cars home on Sunday – if we do that I’ll be very happy."

HRT F1 Cosworth

Formula 1 is back at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after a break in 2009. The day started off cloudy, but it got sunny in the afternoon with air temperatures rising up to 22°C and track temperatures up to 26°C. Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team completed 115 laps at its and both drivers’ debut in Montréal.

In the morning, Karun Chandhok was 20th with a lap time of 1.21.977. His teammate Bruno Senna ended up on position 22 (1.22.701). After a trouble-free first session, in the second ninety minutes everything worked well again for the Spanish team. Karun Chandhok (20th, 1.20.879) managed to do 29 more laps while Bruno Senna added a further 31 laps to the team’s tally. It was the best performance for both Hispania drivers on Friday sessions so far.

Dr Colin Kolles, Team Principal: “It was a good first day for our team in Canada. As expected, the track had a poor grip level in the beginning. Many drivers had to struggle with that and went off the line. Like the other teams, we were fighting with graining on the rear tyres. But we could run a lot today and our drivers got quicker with every lap they did. We could get a lot of information out of the sessions and our drivers got as much track time as possible.”

Karun Chandhok: “I am very pleased with my first day here at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The track is still very green but our pace relative to the other new teams has been more competitive than at any other time this season. There is a lot of tyre graining so we didn’t really push for the ultimate lap time in the afternoon but just spent time trying to understand the tyre wear for the rest of the weekend. The delta time difference to the established teams also seems to be closer than we have seen so far this year so hopefully we can carry on this form into tomorrow and Sunday.”

Bruno Senna: “It was a tough first session as it was the greenest track we drove so far this year. It was very dirty and there was a very poor grip level. During the morning session and also in the afternoon, the track conditions changed a lot. We could do 59 laps today which was good for me because I could learn the track very well with this. All in all, it was a successful day for us and we are looking forward to qualifying tomorrow.”

Virgin Racing Cosworth

The first session at Montreal always takes place on a dirty track, and today was no exception. The sun was out for the start of the session, but the temperature slowly came down, becoming quite chilly by the end. Both drivers reported issues with grip and for quite a while there was very little track action. The team focused on gaining valuable aero data, however Lucas’ morning was cut short by a problem with the brakes on the front left of the car and he had to sit out most of the session.

This afternoon, in slightly warmer conditions, the team continued to run through the tyre programme, however it is clear that there is a lot of work to do overnight to examine the data and try to find the optimum set-up.

Timo Glock, Race Driver: “It has been a difficult day for us. Obviously we haven’t raced here since 2008 and the track conditions didn’t really help us today. We have played around with a lot of things on the aero side and I think we were a bit optimistic with our package for here. We expect the track to continue to improve, which will help us for tomorrow, but the competition looks quite strong so we have a lot of work to do this evening to get to where we need to be.”

Lucas di Grassi, Race Driver: “It was a tough day for me today because it’s my first time racing in Canada and we didn’t get the best start to the weekend. I didn’t run in the first Free Practice because we had an assembly issue with the brakes on the front left. In the second session I was trying to improve the car but we have a long way to go before we arrive at the best set-up.”

Nick Wirth, Technical Director: “We had an unfortunate assembly error today that caused Lucas to stop on circuit and sit out P1, which was very frustrating for him and the team. The track was incredibly dirty to start with and that didn’t suit the low-downforce package that we brought here, but the circuit got a bit better after some cars ran, and even without our race engines it was clear that our straight-line speeds were more competitive than they have been on other Fridays. Nevertheless, we did some key tests specifically for the race, so now we’ll do our usual Friday night analysis and I’m sure we’ll have a stronger Saturday.”