Hungarian Grand Prix – Free Practice Round-Up
HUNGARORING TWENTIES
Panasonic Toyota Racing today began its preparations for
Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix in unusual conditions at the
Hungaroring. Budapest in August usually guarantees extreme
temperatures and one of the hottest grands prix of the season
with track temperatures up to 50 degrees Celsius. But this
year the weather has played tricks on the teams, with overcast
skies and both air and tarmac temperatures in the twenties.
Overnight rain ensured that the track surface was green early
on but both Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher put in two good
sessions of work, finishing 6th and 7th. But the day was overshadowed
by the big accident suffered by Toyota's former driver Cristiano
da Matta in Champ Car testing at the American circuit of Elkhart
Lake. When he was with Toyota Cristiano was always a fighter
and everyone involved in the team wishes him the best as he
fights for his recovery.
Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/10B)
First Session Classification: 17th, 5 laps completed
Lap time: 1m30.110s (+8.486s)
Second Session Classification: 6th, 19 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m23.747s (+1.969s)
"It's unusual to see the Hungaroring in cool conditions
like this so it was a difficult day for all of us because
we were prepared for different temperatures. Tyre graining
is always a problem in low temperatures like we had today
but as rubber goes down over the rest of the weekend that
should improve. We managed to go through all the work we needed
today but it will be a long night to discuss what type of
tyre we will pick for the next two days. At the last three
races we've shown strong pace even if we haven't always converted
that into results. Now we must look to score well before we
head to the August break."
Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/08B)
First Session Classification: 9th, 9 laps completed
Lap time: 1m24.620s (+2.996s)
Second Session Classification: 7th, 18 laps completed
Lap time: 1m23.771s (+1.993s)
"This is the first time I can remember seeing clouds
in Hungary so it will be a very different weekend from usual
here. Obviously when you choose tyres in advance you cannot
predict the weather and you have to go with what you have
seen during the last few years. That means the weather is
an important variable this weekend, but at least we expect
it to stay dry. Today there was low general grip and a lot
of tyre degradation but it was difficult to draw too many
conclusions. Still, I am hopeful because the combination of
our chassis and our Bridgestone tyres has been working well
in recent races."
Dieter Gass - Chief Engineer Race and Test
"Today was a positive day and we made it through our
programme without any major issues. Because of the specialised
nature of the Hungaroring we run a high downforce package
here similar to what we use in Monaco. It's difficult to assess
where we lie after these sessions but we have collected a
lot of information on the tyres which should give us all we
need to make the choice. The track usually approaches 50 degrees
Celsius here so of course the temperatures are lower than
expected. We will have to see how that affects performance
as the weekend progresses. Today there was a lot of graining
throughout the session which made it hard to work on the set-up
but we will look through our data and see what to do tomorrow."
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