Brazilian Grand Prix – Free Practice Round-Up
BOSSA ROUND
Panasonic Toyota Racing today began preparations for the
last race of the 2006 season under cloudy skies at the circuit
of Interlagos in Sao Paulo. It was a good day of practice
for race drivers Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher. Both did
more running than usual in the morning session and they finished
their days of tyre and set-up work with the afternoon's 4th
and 7th fastest times respectively. Toyota already has something
to celebrate from Sao Paulo after the mechanics took second
place behind hosts Petrobras in Wednesday night's 7-a-side
football tournament in the presence of Brazilian legends Socrates
and Careca. Now the team will do everything to secure more
success on Sunday. The Brazilian Grand Prix marks the end
of a season of tough work for the whole team and Toyota will
be pushing as hard as possible to overhaul BMW for fifth place
in the constructors' championship.
Jarno Trulli (Car 8, Chassis TF106/08B)
First Session Classification: 7th, 8 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m14.888s (+1.124s)
Second Session Classification: 4th, 21 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m13.483s (+0.936s)
"That was a good Friday practice session for us. You
always notice the bumps on the first day at Interlagos but
we had no problems and we were able to make it through our
programme of tyre and set-up work. We have been looking competitive
so we are confident heading into tomorrow and the race. After
our double points finish at Suzuka we are only one point away
from BMW in the constructors' championship with one race to
go. Every position is crucial for the team so the most important
thing for this weekend is to push as hard as possible to try
and move up to fifth place. Our pace has improved a lot this
year. Now we have one more chance for points at this last
race and we will do our best to take it."
Ralf Schumacher (Car 7, Chassis TF106/10B)
First Session Classification: 11th, 6 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m16.168s (+2.404s)
Second Session Classification: 7th, 22 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m13.765s (+1.218s)
"This circuit has always been difficult due to the bumps
and today was no different. Today's sessions went okay and
we had no real problems. We completed all our programmes as
planned but now we have to sit together and make our tyre
choice, which will be difficult. This is a challenging circuit
for cars and drivers but I think our package should be good
here. Our speed has been strong at recent races and we were
quick at Suzuka a fortnight ago. So the trend has clearly
been in the right direction and we hope that can continue
here. Our target for the weekend is to take fifth place in
the constructors' championship and I think that would be a
just reward after all the hard work the team has put in this
season."
Dieter Gass – Chief Engineer Race and Test
"So far things have gone well for us here at Interlagos.
Today we had no technical problems so we were able to complete
everything we had planned. Obviously the main focus was tyres
and we have some interesting data which we will now have to
analyse. We will certainly continue to evaluate the tyre choice
tomorrow morning. We have also been working hard at riding
the bumps, which are always an issue here. We put in more
laps than usual this morning because it's a short track and
we had mileage available. It was dirty early on but the track
surface improved as the day went on. We look competitive so
we will keep on working hard and keep focused on coming away
with the points we need on Sunday."
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