Australian Grand Prix – Free Practice Round-Up
Panasonic Toyota Racing today began its preparations for
Sunday's Australian Grand Prix around the streets of the Albert
Park circuit. On a cloudy day in Melbourne, the team began
its bid to make progress after its difficult start to the
year. Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli both successfully completed
their programmes of tyre comparison and set-up work in today's
two practice sessions. The drivers will now look to make continued
improvements over the rest of the weekend as Toyota bids for
points in the race.
MELBOURNE SLIPPY
The Albert Park track is always dirty on the Friday of the
race weekend, and grip was again at a premium today.
Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/04)
First Session Classification: 20th, 2 laps completed
No lap time
Second Session Classification: 16th, 20 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m29.138s (+2.316s)
"That was a normal Friday of tyre testing, set-up work
and trying to find a good balance for the car. We still have
some work to do to get more grip if we want to be more competitive
so we have to work on some solutions to that over the course
of the weekend. We spent today collecting as much data as
we can for the next two days but being a street circuit the
track here always evolves a lot during the course of the weekend.
We will have to wait and see how much we can improve in the
next two days but our target is to make the points on Sunday."
WITH A LITTLE UNDERSTANDING
After meeting the cast of Australian soap Neighbours this
week, Ralf Schumacher began work on setting up the TF106.
Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/05)
First Session Classification: 7th, 5 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m29.411s (+1.152s)
Second Session Classification: 18th, 16 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m29.379s (+2.557s)
"Today's practice sessions made for a difficult start
to the weekend here. We are again struggling to find general
grip, so that is something we need to find for tomorrow to
be in a decent position. The circuit always starts out dirty
here so the grip of the tarmac will improve as the weekend
goes on. We have some different tyres here that we hope will
help us to solve some of the problems we have had with tyre
temperature at the first two races. We already looked better
in Malaysia so we hope to be able to continue to improve our
set-up. Of course it is relatively cool here this weekend
and the weather forecast is not very good. But if everything
runs according to plan then we should aim to score points."
TF106 FRIDAY
Panasonic Toyota Racing's two TF106 cars both completed their
day of set-up work in preparation for Sunday's race.
Mike Gascoyne – Technical Director Chassis
"Both our drivers completed their normal programmes of
work in the two sessions today. The track is always difficult
on the first day here, very dirty and slippery with low levels
of grip, but it improved throughout the day. Certainly the
new spec Bridgestone tyre is working well in these conditions
but we have to look at all the data we have in order to make
the correct tyre choice for tomorrow. Overall there were no
real problems but we now have to look to improve the set-up
to get more grip out of the package. We are not yet where
we want to be but we will have to see what the weather does
tomorrow before we can know exactly where we are."
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