Canadian Grand Prix – Free Practice Round-Up
SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF
Panasonic Toyota Racing began its preparations for the Canadian
Grand Prix with a disrupted Friday of practice under sunny
skies at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The teams have come
to Montreal earlier in June than usual but air temperatures
still topped 30° Celsius today. The track was its usual
dusty self on the first day of running for the F1 cars so
grip was typically short early on. Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher
both had solid mornings of work but Jarno’s afternoon
was disrupted by a suspension problem early in the second
session. The incident cost him over half the afternoon’s
running and Ralf was also forced to stop while the team checked
the cause of the damage. Shortly before the end both drivers
went out again but the problem reoccurred on Jarno’s
car. The disrupted Friday programme means Toyota will now
have it all to do in Saturday’s practice session to
prepare for qualifying and the race.
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/06)
First Session 12th 25 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 18.925s
(+1.166s)
Second Session 18th 16 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 18.895s
(+2.345s)
“My day was cut short because we suffered a problem
with my front right suspension early in the second session.
We missed most of the afternoon and it happened again when
we went out at the end. That is unfortunate and we will have
to investigate the issue tonight. It also means I have had
only a very short time to work on set-up changes. I’ve
had problems with the rear of the car and I’ve struggled
with high rear tyre wear so I have a lot of work ahead to
catch up tomorrow. Still, after two races with nothing to
show we will push as hard as we can to bounce back. I have
a new helmet dedicated to my friend Danilo De Luca who has
just won cycling’s Giro D’Italia so I will hope
that helps bring me better fortunes.”
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/05)
First Session 8th 32 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 18.652s
(+0.893s)
Second Session 19th 16 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 19.331s
(+2.781s)
“That was a difficult afternoon for us due to the problems
we have had. When Jarno had the first problem with his suspension
we both stopped running for 45 minutes as a precaution. At
the end of the session we went out but when it happened again
we had to stop running. The car didn’t feel too bad
for the first half of the session but we could not show our
full potential. We’ve had a frustrating run lately but
we will keep hoping for an improvement this weekend. I’m
looking forward to a better day tomorrow.”
Dieter Gass – Chief Engineer Race and Test
“Obviously that was not a good afternoon for us. We
have an issue on the front suspension of Jarno’s car
which is clearly related to this circuit. We have now identified
the front upright as the problem area. We have no changes
on the parts here and they have been tested and run throughout
the season so far. So we need to look into that and understand
what has happened. As a precaution we kept Ralf in the garage.
This problem has overshadowed all our running today and we
are lacking a lot of the information that we were looking
for. This morning went quite well but the circuit was obviously
in more representative conditions after it rubbered in this
afternoon. Now we need to sit down and change tomorrow’s
run plan to see how we can make the best out of the weekend.”
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