Team Rundown: Friday 2003 San Marino GP


By Andrew Hooper
April 18 2003

 

 

  
Team Rundown
 
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: Michael Schumacher 1st, Rubens Barrichello 2nd.

"It is a good start for the weekend here in front of our home crowd," said Jean Todt. "It is confirmation of the potential of the F2002 and Bridgestone showed that we have a good tyre for one flying lap. We still have to make our final choice of tyres for the race. There were no major problems for us today."

BMW Williams F1 Team: Ralf Schumacher 3rd, Juan Pablo Montoya 4th.

"We have made improvements with both mechanical and aerodynamic parts," said chief designer Gavin Fisher, "and the car looked as good over the kerbs as the Ferrari. Maybe out drivers were a little bit too conservative or perhaps the Ferrari drivers know the circuit better. With perfect laps I think our drivers would have been ahead of Rubens Barrichello."

Juan Pablo Montoya said that he felt he was too conservative on his run in qualifying.

"After my mistake in Brazil I think I was being a bit too cautious," he said. "The car is very good but I made a mistake at Rivazza.

West McLaren Mercedes: Kimi Raikkonen 8th, David Coulthard 9th.

The McLaren team was not happy with eighth and ninth in the first qualifying session.

"It is a bit of a disappointment," said technical director Adrian Newey. "At the end of the day we will be working to improve things overnight and do better tomorrow when the running order will be different."

Mild Seven Renault F1 Team: Fernando Alonso 13th, Jarno Trulli 16th.

"Obviously we are not satisfied with the result of the qualifying session," said chief engineer Pat Symonds. "The car is not working well and we will have to look at that tonight and see if we can figure it out. We knew that we would not be as a competitive here as we have been in other places but we did not expect to be this far away."

Sauber Petronas: Heinz-Harald Frentzen 10th, Nick Heidfeld 14th.

The hopes of the Sauber Petronas team were spoiled somewhat by a broken throttle pedal on Heinz Harald Frentzen's car.

"Nick was struggling to find a good balance until this afternoon but that worked out all right," said technical director Willy Rampf. "The big thing was that Heinz broke the throttle pedal at the Variante Alta and although he managed to complete his flying lap he did lose some time as a result."

Jordan Ford: Giancarlo Fisichella 11th, Ralph Firman 17th.

After the victory in Brazil the qualifying session brought Jordan down to earth.

"We are a bit disappointed," said chief engineer Gary Anderson. "It is so competitive out there that you cannot afford any slip ups. Giancarlo made a mistake at Rivazza and Ralph did the same at the Variante Alta. We are just not quick enough and we need to make the car ride the kerbs better."

"It is not too bad," said Giancarlo Fisichella. "I made a couple of mistakes in the third sector. I think that without that the top 10 is possible but we need to work more on the set-up of the car."

Jaguar Racing: Mark Webber 5th, Antonio Pizzonia 15th.

Mark Webber again impressed with the fifth fastest time in the first qualifying session.

"The first sector on my lap was a bit weak," said Webber. "But the last sector was really good so I am very happy. I am very pleased but really we should be putting two cars into the top 10. I feel a bit sorry for the guys who ran early in the session because the track was a bit green but our car feels good and we had no repeat of the fuel pick-up problems of recent races."

Antonio Pizzonia was frustrated to again be the driver who had the problems.

"It was really down to the lack of track time because of an engine problem I had this morning," he said. "I went out in the spare but that had an electrical problem so I was not really ready for qualifying."

Cosworth Racing's managing-director of engineering Nick Hayes said that Pizzonia was just unlucky.

"We have seen the problem which happened on Antonio's car once before, when we were running the engine on the dyno," he said. "We have not been able to make enough new bits to have the modifications on every engine so Antonio was really unlucky. But we are happy with Mark's performance.

Lucky Strike BAR Honda: Jenson Button 6th, Jacques Villeneuve 7th.

There was considerable optimism at BAR after a strong showing in qualifying at Imola.

"We expected to be in the top eight here," said technical director Geoff Willis. "We are quite happy with sixth and seventh. Coming here for winter testing - when the car was quite consistent - has helped us and we are pretty confident. We are losing time in the middle sector and we need to work on that. Jenson worked on the balance of the car this morning and it was improved for qualifying. Unfortunately a gearbox problem for Jacques this morning meant he lost track time."

European Minardi Cosworth: Jos Verstappen 19th, Justin Wilson 20th.

Paul Stoddart was full of praise for the team's new test driver Matteo Bobbi who had his first run with the team at a race meeting.

"He has not run here before," said Paul Stoddart, "and he did a good job at a track which he doesn't really know. Sadly he lost a lot of the session with a sensor problem. Justin Wilson also a problem with an engine sensor. so he lost some time with that. The cars are at the back of the grid so we are not happy but what we are losing out in performance we must try to make back with strategy."

Panasonic Toyota Racing: Olivier Panis 12th, Cristiano da Matta 18th.

The Toyota team was not very happy with the first qualifying session.

"Both drivers had problems taking the cars over the high kerbs," said chief designer Gustav Brunner. "We made some fairly big changes on Olivier's car this morning and it was much better this afternoon. We did not make the same changes to Cristiano's car but they will be made for tomorrow. We still need to work a lot on the set-up."

Bridgestone: Hisao Suganuma:

"Track temperatures were much higher today than they were when we tested earlier this year but still the performance of our tyres is very good and we are as competitive as we expected to be. This bodes well for the race but of course it is only Friday."

Michelin: Pascal Vasselon (F1 Project Leader):

"As usual the track changed a lot in the course of the day and it was very different in the afternoon from how it was in the morning. We have three different kinds of dry tyres and we went soft to make up for the general lack of grip."
 
 
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