2007 Hungarian GP, Friday - 3 AUG 2007
The ING Renault F1 Team completed a busy and productive opening
day of practice for the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring.
Giancarlo Fisichella (R27-02, T-car)
Free Practice 1: P17, 1:24.920, 19 laps
Free Practice 2: P8, 1:21.698, 36 laps
Heikki Kovalainen (R27-03)
Free Practice 1: P15, 1:24.733, 18 laps
Free Practice 2: P2, 1:21.283, 39 laps
The priority for the day was to conduct a thorough performance
and endurance comparison of the two types of Bridgestone Potenza
tyre available to the teams this weekend, which are the soft
and super-soft compounds from the 2007 range.
However, at the Hungaroring this task is complicated by the
fact that the circuit is used very little throughout the year,
meaning the surface is very green on the opening day of practice.
The poor track conditions saw the team complete less running
than planned in the morning session as the drivers waited
for conditions to improve, while the afternoon saw cloud cover
build and some light rain fall after approximately an hour.
However, no more rain is currently forecast for the rest of
the weekend. In spite of these disruptions, the drivers successfully
completed their tyre comparisons, and managed to find a good
base-line race set-up for the R27. They completed a total
of 112 laps during the day, and will now look to improve the
set-up overnight ahead of tomorrow's final practice session
which, as normal, will be dedicated to fine-tuning qualifying
performance.
Heikki Kovalainen, P2
We ran a slightly unusual programme today, and it seemed to
work well for us. I felt confident and comfortable in the
car straight away, and the balance was quite neutral through
both sessions. I got good quick laps on both types of tyre,
and we understand the differences in their behaviour. I think
that compared to recent races, this was a much better start
to the weekend, and we are on the right track with the set-up.
Now we need to improve the car a little bit overnight, and
stay focused on producing a good performance on Sunday.
Giancarlo Fisichella, P8
The day got off to quite a difficult start for me, and we
had to change quite a lot on the set-up to get a good balance.
I still wasn't happy with the car during the short runs at
the start of second practice, so I couldn't get the maximum
from the tyres, but we made some more changes after that and
it really improved the handling. There is work to do overnight,
but we have moved in the right direction today, and hopefully
that will continue tomorrow morning.
Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
The times on Friday are not always a reliable indication of
teams' true pace, and they must always be treated with some
caution as teams often run quite different programmes. On
a circuit such as this, that is probably even more true. We
focused on completing our programme today and started to get
a handle on the tyres. As always, the track was very low in
grip when we started running, and the constantly-improving
track conditions further complicated our attempts to find
a good handling balance. It was important to avoid chasing
the track evolution with our set-up changes, and I think we
made good progress on the basic performance of the car in
spite of this.
Denis Chevrier, Head of Engine Track Operations
We enjoyed a trouble-free day of running as we worked to adapt
the RS27 engine to this circuit. As usual on a Friday, we
completed more laps in the afternoon than the morning, and
the focus was primarily on understanding the tyres and chassis
performance over short and long runs. The Hungaroring is not
intrinsically demanding for the V8, but the temperatures mean
it is critical to get the right cooling compromise. We are
searching for every last bit of downforce at this twisty circuit,
and being too conservative with our cooling can cost aerodynamic
performance. So far, the weekend has been incident-free, and
we have found good settings for the engines which can now
be transferred to the race engines tomorrow.
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