Belgian Grand Prix – Free Practice Round-Up
ARDENNES ADMIRERS
Panasonic Toyota Racing was back at the historic Spa-Francorchamps
circuit in the Ardennes Forest today to begin practice for
the Belgian Grand Prix in positive fashion. The team tested
at Spa for three days back in July to experience the revamped
circuit and Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli continued where
they left off with two 90-minute practice sessions today.
Practice started under clear skies but with relatively low
air temperature of 17°C, but grip levels gradually improved
during the day and the drivers tried out different aerodynamic
and mechanical set-ups while also sampling the soft and medium
compound Bridgestone Potenza tyres. Despite Spa’s reputation
for changeable weather, second practice also ran under clear
skies and Jarno and Ralf completed a trouble-free session
to finish an impressive 5th and 6th fastest respectively.
After completing more than a race distance today, the team
will now focus on further improving the car set-up in time
for tomorrow’s qualifying session.
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/04)
First Session 8th 19 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 48.994s
(+1.655s)
Second Session 5th 33 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 47.491s
(+0.837s)
“Today went quite well and I am pretty happy. We basically
concentrated on set-up work and tyre performance. I think
we are looking quite strong for this weekend, and it was good
to set some competitive lap times this afternoon. I love this
circuit. It is the best in the world so I am very motivated
to get a good result here. It has everything a driver wants
from a track, you are challenged everywhere and there is every
different type of corner. I am pushing as hard as possible
to score some points because we have been close in the last
few races but always had problems. I always find myself in
a good mood here at Spa so I hope for the rest of the weekend
we can continue to do a good job.”
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/05)
First Session 12th 21 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 49.548s
(+2.209s)
Second Session 6th 32 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 47.946s
(+1.292s)
“We went through all our planned programme and had
no reliability issues, which is a positive thing. We already
had a good idea of set-up from our test here earlier this
year but of course the conditions were not exactly the same
today. We expected to be reasonably strong here after our
test earlier in the year and this seems to be the case, judging
by today’s lap times. I am relatively happy with the
pace we showed. Qualifying has been very close in the last
few races with only one or two 10ths making a big difference
so we will work hard to optimise our car in time for qualifying.
I am optimistic about our chances and hopefully we can fight
for a strong result in qualifying and then the race.”
Dieter Gass – Chief Engineer Race and Test
“It was a positive day for us. We ran through our programme
of set-up and tyre work very smoothly, and our lap times were
quite encouraging. From the test here in July we had a good
base line set-up already so we just needed a bit more fine
tuning to adapt to the conditions here and get the most out
of our package, which we did with steady progress through
the two sessions. We also got quite a good picture of how
the soft and medium tyres behave. Both cars did a lot of miles
today without any significant technical problems. As usual,
it is only a Friday and people are running different programmes
so we will have to wait and see. However, I hope we can keep
the momentum going for the rest of the weekend.”
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