Italian Grand Prix – Free Practice Round-Up
GREEN PARK
Panasonic Toyota Racing today began its preparations for the
Italian Grand Prix with a busy day of work at Monza. Last
week’s test at the circuit in the Parco di Monza was
disrupted by rain and the track was again green for the start
of today’s action. That got better during the day and
the improvements should continue because sunny weather is
forecast for the whole weekend. For Toyota, Ralf Schumacher
and Jarno Trulli both enjoyed a trouble-free practice although
the second session was interrupted by a red flag caused by
a car in a dangerous position. Jarno ended the afternoon with
the 11th fastest time while Ralf was 12th. The team will now
look to build on this solid start as it prepares for qualifying
and Sunday’s race.
Jarno Trulli (Car 12, Chassis TF107/04)
First Session 10th 29 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 23.965s
(+1.519s)
Second Session 11th 39 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 23.919s
(+1.533s)
“Monza has always been a special venue for me both for
the track and for the atmosphere, especially now it is the
only Italian race on the calendar. The car always feels lighter
here because you run with such low downforce for the long
straights. My two days of testing last week went well and
we improved our set-up and braking stability. Today everything
went pretty smoothly and we carried out the usual work on
set-up and tyres. But we have some work to do overnight to
improve the handling so I can push hard for a strong race
here in front of my home fans.”
Ralf Schumacher (Car 11, Chassis TF107/05)
First Session 15th 20 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 24.660s
(+2.214s)
Second Session 12th 29 laps completed Lap Time: 1m 23.922s
(+1.536s)
“Last week’s test was a bit frustrating for me
because both the days of running I did were heavily disrupted
by rain and the track was very green. That meant I still had
plenty of work to do on the set-up of the car in the better
weather we saw today. We’re reasonably happy with what
we achieved and we didn’t have any technical problems.
But it’s clear that we still have a lot to do on the
car side. The kerbs are a challenge for everyone but we have
to find a way to get the most out of them. So we have some
work to do tonight to plan for the rest of the weekend but
I’m confident qualifying will look better for us tomorrow.”
Dieter Gass – Chief Engineer Race and Test
“Following our test here from a week ago there were
not too many surprises concerning the handling and balance
of the car. Nevertheless we did a lot of fine tuning on the
set-up, mainly trying to improve the handling over the kerbs,
which is important here in Monza. We also collected more data
on the tyres for our race strategy. The two specifications
seem to be quite similar in their behaviour and even on the
first lap there is not a big difference between them. So far
we seem to be a bit further down in comparison to where we
were in practice in Hungary and Turkey. But we will look into
the data tonight and try to make an improvement tomorrow.
We have new front and rear wings and other aerodynamic modifications
and we will try to make the most of our package over the rest
of the weekend.”
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