Location: Circuit Paul Ricard, France
Driver: Ralf Schumacher
Track length: 3.593 kms
SOFTLY SOFTLY
No sooner had the flag dropped on the season’s first
European Grand Prix in Barcelona than the Formula 1 circus
had decamped to Paul Ricard, near Marseilles in the south
of France. With the next race on the calendar Formula 1’s
blue riband event around the streets of Monte Carlo, it was
time for the teams to sample the ‘super soft’
Bridgestone tyres not used thus far this season. Bridgestone’s
control rubber comes in four variants – hard, medium,
soft and super soft. At each race the Japanese company chooses
two compounds, with hard and medium available in Barcelona,
but Monaco will see the soft tyre selected as the ‘prime’
and the super soft as the ‘option.’ The early
part of this week’s Ricard test, therefore, has most
of the teams working on tyre evaluation with the super soft
likely to be used in Monaco qualifying, where grid position
is all-important due to the added difficulty of overtaking
around the street track’s tight confines. Ralf Schumacher
was at the wheel today for the first of four days testing
and he enjoyed a trouble-free day, setting the second fastest
time as he got to grips with the new compound.
Ralf Schumacher - Chassis TF107/03
Best Lap Time: 1min 06.920s
Position: 2nd
Total laps: 96
Total distance: 344.928 kms
“The main focus of my test is to concentrate on detail
work for Monte Carlo. The car was quite oversteery early in
the day and that wasn’t helped by the strong gusting
winds that, at one point, were moving me over a couple of
metres on the main straight. You sometimes get that on a motorway
overtaking a lorry on a windy day but it’s not a nice
feeling at 200mph! People talk about the strong Mistral wind
in this part of the world and I certainly experienced it today.
Sometimes the wind was so strong that you barely got top gear
on the straight but when conditions were calmer we had a productive
day, trying a number of set-ups as well as evaluating the
super soft and soft tyres for Monaco.”
Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager
“We had a good day with no reliability issues and got
through our programme. Ralf was happier with the set-up later
in the day and it has provided a good base for what is an
important test. With Monaco coming up we have also been running
the super soft and soft Bridgestone tyres. We have a busy
schedule to get through, which Ralf will continue tomorrow
while Franck Montagny takes over on Thursday and Friday.”
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