MF1 RACING
2006 San Marino GP - Free Practice
Tiago Monteiro (POR)
Chassis: M16-03, Car #18
First Timed Session Classification: 15th, 1:29.697 (+4.946),
13 laps completed
Second Timed Session Classification: 21st, 1:27.544 (+2.501),
20 laps completed
Quote: "I'm a bit frustrated today.
We lost a lot of time with the old tyres, which was the set
programme, but we shouldn't have. I did 75% of my day's practice
on tyres that obviously didn't work, and that led us in the
wrong direction in terms of set-up, as well as the way I had
to drive the car. So naturally, I wasn't too happy about that.
But then, when we put the new tyres on, it was like driving
a completely different car and I gained two seconds right
away. Thankfully, we have one more hour of practice tomorrow
morning before qualifying to optimise the set-up with the
new tyres, so I'm confident we can be a lot quicker."
Christijan Albers (NED)
Chassis: M16-02, Car #19
First Timed Session Classification: 10th, 1:28.048 (+3.297),
13 laps completed
Second Timed Session Classification: 14th, 1:26.783 (+1.740),
24 laps completed
Quote: "I think we had a reasonable
day, but I'm not really surprised, to be honest, because I
know what we're capable of when we're on our game. We are
a serious team, and we made the most of our Friday programme
today. I also think that tomorrow, when we go for qualifying,
we'll be able to find even more time."
Giorgio Mondini (SUI)
Chassis: M16-04, T-Car
First Timed Session Classification: 12th, 1:28.969 (+4.218),
20 laps completed
Second Timed Session Classification: 26th, 1:28.833 (+3.790),
27 laps completed
Quote: "This morning, I found the car
difficult to drive, because it did not match my set-up preferences.
But this afternoon, we made some changes that improved the
handling quite a lot. The new spec front wing was much better
but unfortunately, I broke it on a kerb, so we went back to
the old one and I wasn't able to improve on my times. But
I felt good in the car, and I think the team did a great job
to keep moving up the time sheets. Christijan's fast lap,
in particular, was excellent, so I think the engineers were
able to get some good data."
Dominic Harlow, Chief Race and Test Engineer:
"We had a couple of very productive sessions today, just
working through the programme we'd planned for our car updates.
We also seem to have a good direction on the tyres we've selected
for this weekend. Now it's just a question of siting down
and going through the data to see how we can improve again
tomorrow. I think we can probably increase Tiago's pace a
bit more and move him closer to Christijan's time. Giorgio's
obviously given us a lot of feedback from his tyre work today,
so we're quite pleased with the work we've put in."
Andy Stevenson, Team Manager: "We had
a very productive test at Silverstone last week, where we
ran the new aero parts for this weekend. Christijan arrived
feeling very upbeat about the whole thing, and he's managed
to put some very good laps together. He was consistently quick
all the way through the session and then just steadily climbed
up the table. Actually, if you take all the 3rd drivers out
of the equation, we were 11th quickest today. So I think that
puts us in a good position for the remainder of the weekend."
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