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2005 San Marino Formula 1 Grand Prix
What the teams and drivers said - Friday

Team and Driver Quotes following Friday Practice Sessions

(selected team quotes, for a full team and driver preview click on the team name)

McLaren Mercedes ( Pedro de la Rosa - 1st, Kimi Raikkonen - 3rd, Alex Wurz - 8th )

Ron Dennis
"It has been a satisfactory day with the team working well despite a minor technical difficulty this morning on Alex's car. There has been solid work on all cars evaluating our Michelin tyre choice for the weekend and working on set up. The whole weekend is clearly going to be competitive and we need to continue this work in order to achieve our objectives at this event."

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BAR Honda ( Jenson Button - 2nd, Takuma Sato - 10th )

Geoffrey Willis, Technical Director
"We are very pleased with today's running which has very much gone to plan. Both drivers have been competitive throughout, with Jenson fastest for much of the session. The car, with its latest developments, is performing as well as we expected from our tests during the last two weeks. We now have some work to do this evening to make our tyre selection and we look forward to another good day tomorrow."

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Toyota ( Ricardo Zonta - 4th, Jarno Trulli - 13th, Ralf Schumacher - 15th )

Dieter Gass - Chief Race Engineer "We had a reasonably productive day with no real mechanical worries on any of the cars. Ricardo conducted his normal tyre evaluation with long runs in the second session. Unfortunately on his car we took a slightly wrong direction on set-up, which meant he struggled in the afternoon. The race drivers had only limited running in the first session, putting in only installation laps to conserve mileage. They moved on to comparing tyres in the afternoon. We have to look at that data very carefully because the tyre choice is not as clear cut as we thought. Generally the car is not bad, but I think we can still improve the cars a lot for tomorrow. There's certainly room for improvement."

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Renault ( Fernando Alonso - 5th, Giancarlo Fisichella 9th )

Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
"As is typical on a Friday, we concentrated on evaluating the tyres available to us for this race. This was made somewhat easier by the fact that we had already run them in testing, and therefore had already got a good idea on the direction we should take. Our day was straightforward and as usual, the balance is not yet perfect – but equally, it is not far from ideal. Overall, it was an encouraging start to the weekend."

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Ferrari ( Michael Schumacher - 6th, Rubens Barrichello - 7th )

Jean Todt: “We are happy to be here at Imola for the first European race. It would be good if the championship started today, but that is not the case and we have come to the fourth round of the season, with a big gap to close to the leaders. This is a special race for the team, as it is the nearest to Maranello and for me on a personal level, as I have the honour, along with Michael, of once again taking on the role of ambassador of the Republic of San Marino. As usual today, we worked on car set-up and a comparison of the two types of Bridgestone tyre at our disposal. While taking into account the usual Friday unknowns – amount of fuel on board and variable track conditions – our evaluation of today’s work can be a positive one. This Friday has provided an encouraging sign for the rest of the weekend.”

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Sauber ( Felipe Massa - 11th, Jacques Villeneuve - 12th )

Peter Sauber (Team Principal): "The aerodynamic package we have brought here has borne out all the promise of improvement that it showed in the wind tunnel back in Hinwil. I believe that we have made an important step forward and we hope to reconfirm this tomorrow. Unfortunately we need to change the engine in Felipe's car because it was running hot during the race in Bahrain and has shown signs of losing its edge. This is greatly disappointing, but on the other hand I am happy that Jacques was able to benefit from the improvements in the car."

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Williams BMW ( Nick Heidfeld - 14th, Mark Webber - 18th )

Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1): 
We've had a good first day here in Imola. We got through all of our programme, mainly evaluating tyre compounds and brakes for the race on Sunday. Everything looks good, we had no mechanical problems. Now we are looking to further improve the set-up to get a couple of extra tenths out of the cars. The tyre choice this evening is obviously important. Our engineers will work close together with Michelin to make sure we make the right decision for the race.

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Red Bull ( David Coulthard - 16th, Christian Klien - 19th, Vitantonio Liuzzi - 21st )

Günther Steiner, Technical Director:
“Today’s session was okay overall. We did everything we wanted to do, but it is hard to draw any conclusion. Basically the problem is that we are too slow. At the moment we have to think what we want to do for tomorrow to improve. We changed the aero balance and Christian tested the different damper and tyre specifications. David worked on balance and aero changes as well as the mechanical set-up. Tonio also worked on tyre choice.”

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Jordan ( Narain Karthikeyan - 17th, Tiago Monteiro - 20th, Robert Doornbos - 22nd )

Trevor Carlin, Sporting Director
“We are reasonably satisfied with today’s performance. Narain has done a very good job with his best lap at 1.23.842, which put us 1.8 seconds behind the Ferraris, which is quite encouraging. Robert went through a suspension programme, which unfortunately ended when he had a little spin and Tiago carried on with tyre evaluation.”

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Minardi ( Patrick Friesacher - 23rd, Christijan Albers - 24th )

Paul Stoddart, Team Principal, Minardi Cosworth
“After a productive first session that saw both cars run virtually faultlessly, the second session proved there is no substitute for testing. A wiring problem put paid to Christijan’s session, and while Patrick got all but one of his planned runs in, today was clearly all about beginning to understand the new car. Overall, the whole team is really impressed with the PS05, which appears to have enormous potential. I’m proud of the job done by the whole team, but particularly the relentless effort by the mechanics to get the cars on track today. Well done!”

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Bridgestone

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager, said: “The track was quite green this morning and very slippery but that didn’t stop the cars going out. Michael set some good lap times this morning and although Rubens had a problem he managed to get some good running this afternoon and work on refining his set-up. Jordan and Minardi have also been busy collecting tyre data, with today being particularly important for Minardi who are debuting their new car this weekend. So overall, I’m happy with the way the tyres have performed at Imola and they have shown good balance under braking.”

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Michelin

Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin motorsport director “It has been a very interesting start to the weekend and, once again, it appears that several of Michelin’s partners will be extremely competitive.
“For Imola we have developed a greater range of tyre compounds than usual – two ‘primes’ and three ‘options’. This is in response to specific requests from our partner teams, who are beginning to tune their chassis to a finer degree as they gain more experience of their current cars and the latest tyre regulations. It is too early for any definitive decisions to have been taken, of course, but I anticipate that at least three different types of Michelin will be on the grid.
“Forecasters predict definite rain between now and the race – and that will add an extra degree of uncertainty to proceedings. It is possible that the track will be very ‘green’ once again by Sunday, for instance. It will be fascinating to see how things develop during the balance of the weekend. Whatever happens, though, it looks set to be a very open and competitive race.”

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