Spain: Friday practice comment from Midland F1

By MF1 media
May 12 2006

Since the Circuit de Catalunya is a regular test circuit for the Formula One grid, Midland F1 Racing elected to save their tyres to start the Spanish Grand Prix weekend. During the second free practice session, the team worked extensively on electronic setup...

... and is confident that the data gained will result in a competitive qualifying pace on Saturday.

Third driver for this weekend, Giorgio Mondini, worked on tyre choice and praised the team for their conduct and hard work. As a result of the combination the team are comfortable with their choice of race tyre for the race on Sunday.

Tiago Monteiro (POR)
Chassis: M16-03, Car #18
First Timed Session Classification: N/A, 1 lap completed
Second Timed Session Classification: 27th, 1:20.311(+3.778), 19 laps completed
Quote: "It was short day for me. Obviously, we didn't run in the morning because of the track conditions. This afternoon, we restricted ourselves to running on the same tyre to evaluate different electronic settings - traction control, anti-lock braking, that kind of thing - and we realised that we have an understeer issue, which I'm really struggling with at the moment, so we need to work on that. To be fair, all the work we've done on the electronic side has drastically changed the handling characteristics of the car since last week, which should be for the better. It's just that now we need to understand how to set the car up for that. So I'm going to work hard with the engineers tonight to get it sorted for tomorrow. Overall, though, I think it's a positive point that we discovered the extra potential to be gained from the electronics."

Christijan Albers (NED)
Chassis: M16-04, Car #19
First Timed Session Classification: N/A, 1 lap completed
Second Timed Session Classification: 25th, 1:19.358 (+2.825), 15 laps completed
Quote: "It's going to be a long night, because we are further off than we expected. So we need to work really hard to get on the pace for tomorrow. We need to find out why the speed is not there. Everyone here is doing a good job, and I'm confident we'll get it solved, but that doesn't mean we are happy, because we clearly need to improve. The lap time is just not good enough right now, and we've got to get that worked out for tomorrow."

Giorgio Mondini (SUI)
Chassis: M16-02, T-Car
First Timed Session Classification: 8th, 1:20.708 (+4.912), 21 laps completed
Second Timed Session Classification: 22nd, 1:18.910 (+2.377), 22 laps completed
Quote: "I'm very thankful to all my mechanics and engineers - they are really good, and today they demonstrated why they are at the top level of racing. We had some problems with the car in the morning and we lost some time trying to find out what it was, but more importantly, they solved the problem and made the car much quicker in the process. It's always a shame to miss out on track time, but I'm happy to sacrifice it if it makes the car better. We only used five sets of tyres out of the seven, and obviously we could have gone quicker if we'd had the time to use them all. We're moving in the right direction, and with a little bit of work, I think Tiago and Christijan should be able to go in the low one-seventeens in qualifying tomorrow."

James Key, Technical Director: "Not the easiest of free practice days, to be honest. We had just a general lack of grip, which we'll try and solve for tomorrow. At least we're pretty set on which tyre we're going to use, and to be fair, Giorgio, with his longer runs, showed that the tyre is going to be a pretty good race tyre. It's just a new tyre that we've got to get sorted out now. I think all three drivers suffered from the same problem - it's pretty clear what it is - and we've got to work tonight on solving it for tomorrow."

Dominic Harlow, Chief Race and Test Engineer: "Tricky conditions today, given the showers in the morning and having to wait for the track to dry. In the morning, we had a slightly condensed programme. In the afternoon, we were struggling a bit with the track and the wind, which resulted in low grip and a bit of understeering. But we'll start to sort it out tonight, and we should be appreciably better in qualifying tomorrow."

Show your support for Midland F1 Racing by clicking on the banner above and signing up.