Spyker slow in practice.

By Phil Giles
March 16 2007

Spyker have ended the the first practice session of the 2007 F1 Grand Prix World Championship in 21st and 22nd places, nearly four seconds off the pace of Felippe Massa's Ferrari.

Damp conditions and tyre testing affected the teams practice sessions, however the drivers put in over 90 laps with no technical problems.  Christijan limited his time on track in the first session which was damp and overcast/.

Adrian Sutil
"Today was challenging as we've never run the car on a street track before and we struggled a little for grip and to get the tyres up to speed in the cool temperatures, but we know what we have to do. The circuit is not that difficult to get to know, but there are some tricky parts and there isn't much grip in places. As we saw when some of the top drivers went off, it's easy to lock up and run wide, but I like the track a lot. I hope I will be even better in Qualifying than today."

Christijan Albers:
"Even though today was a reasonably difficult day with the wet track and cold temperatures, I think it was quite productive. Everybody is ready for the fight; we know it's not going to be easy but we'll be there tomorrow, trying our best to get the most out of the car and trying to understand the tyres as much as we can."

Mike Gascoyne
"Today went as expected and we had no real mechanical issues. The first session's damp conditions made it difficult to gather any meaningful information, but it did give Adrian the opportunity to cover a lot of laps and familiarise himself with the circuit."

"In the second session we worked on comparing two tyres, but we're still struggling to get temperature into them in the cooler conditions today but this should improve over the weekend. Also we suffered with graining, especially on the softer tyre. We just have to get the tyres in the right window and then work to improve the performance of the car."

Session 1
1 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 1:29.214
2 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:30.707
3 Sebastian Vettel BMW 1:30.857
4 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:30.878
5 Jenson Button Honda 1:31.162
6 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:31.401
7 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:31.528
8 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 1:31.571
9 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:31.661
10 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:31.737
11 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:31.782
12 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:32.011
13 Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota 1:32.194
14 Christijan Albers Spyker-Ferrari 1:34.043
15 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Ferrari 1:34.627
16 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari 1:35.055
17 Nick Heidfeld BMW 1:37.249
18 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1:39.221
19 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:39.242
20 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:39.550
21 Scott Speed STR-Ferrari 1:41.763
22 12 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:44.130

Session 2
1 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:27.353
2 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:27.750
3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.829
4 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:27.941
5 Nick Heidfeld BMW 1:27.970
6 Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota 1:27.981
7 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.040
8 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:28.055
9 Robert Kubica BMW 1:28.281
10 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:28.495
11 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1:28.727
12 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:28.921
13 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:29.009
14 Jenson Button Honda 1:29.066
15 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:29.542
16 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:29.574
17 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:29.801
18 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 1:30.097
19 Scott Speed STR-Ferrari 1:30.383
20 Christijan Albers Spyker-Ferrari 1:31.108
21 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari 1:31.175
22 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Ferrari 1:31.693