German Grand Prix – 18th June 2008
Free practice – First session
Driver Pos. Time Laps Chassis
F. Massa 3rd 1.15.796 22 269
K. Raikkonen 5th 1.16.327 23 270
Weather: air 17/18 °C, track 22/24 °C, rain then overcast;
track from wet to dry.
Free Practice – Second session
Driver Pos. Time Laps Chassis
F. Massa 2nd 1.15.722 31 269
K. Raikkonen 3rd 1.15.760 34 270
Weather: air 19 °C, track 29/37 °C, cloudy, occasional
sunshine.
Three hours of free practice without the slightest technical
problem kicked off Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro’s weekend
at the German Grand Prix, in a race which marks Hockenheim’s
return to the Formula 1 calendar. The first session was characterised
by changing weather conditions, with a wet track at the start,
which got progressively drier. No rain and even a few bursts
of sunshine in the second session. Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe
Massa completed a total of over five hundred kilometres, working
on car set-up and comparing the two types of dry tyre at our
disposal. “It was a reasonably positive day,”
commented Team Principal of the Gestione Sportiva, Stefano
Domenicali. “We were able to work without interruption
which is the main thing on a Friday. In general, both drivers
are pretty pleased and I think our performance level matches
that of our main rivals, which was also the case in last week’s
test. The weather looks like being a bit uncertain tomorrow,
therefore we will have to be ready to tackle every eventuality
and I think we can hold our own both in qualifying and in
the race.”
Felipe Massa: “All in all, it was
a good day. We were always competitive, as were our main rivals.
It won’t be a stroll in the park, but we can take them
on. We also worked on a wet track and I feel I can claim we
will be on the pace in any conditions. There was not much
difference, today at least, in pure performance terms between
the hard and soft tyres but I think the latter will be a little
bit quicker still and will definitely be the right choice
for qualifying. Now we have to study our data to be in the
best possible shape for both qualifying and the race.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “Friday’s results
always need to be looked at with a degree of caution as you
never know for certain what the other teams were doing and
today is no exception to that rule. For our part, we tried
to improve the set-up of the car compared to the point we
had reached at the end of the test and we found, especially
towards the end of the day, a few settings that could be interesting.
So, I am reasonably pleased with how things went and I think
that there is still room for improvement. The times of our
main rivals? As I said at the start, there are too many question
marks to be certain: what I can say is that we will be competitive,
especially as right up until the final minutes, the times
were all very similar.”
Luca Baldisserri: “It’s positive
to start a race weekend doing so many kilometres without experiencing
any technical problems. We worked from a good starting point
having run at this track for three days last week. The pecking
order seems similar to that at the test, with our car pretty
competitive over a long run. Now we will analyse all the data
we have to be as well prepared as possible for qualifying,
which involves a degree of uncertainty over the weather, although
it is not expected to rain for the race.”
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