Bahrain GP Free Practice 1, 2 and 3

[icegirljenni]

Not quite an interesting session but it is fun to watch it after the long torture winter break

[Tension_36th]

The times mean nothing as everyone is running different fuel loads and tyre pressures plus ride height testing.

[Tension_36th]

Mercedes will be no slouch, but the rest are not showing their hands yet. Especially the smug Mclarens.

Massa ran the last few laps on super softs and Fernando was on a tyre comparisons with the harder tyres on his last runs.

Fuel loads are varied and the session it not worth reading too much into.

[icegirljenni]

quite a boring session

[Jam_Van_Dam]

Damn i missed it

[falmark]

(03-12-2010 04:02 PM)Jam_Van_Dam Wrote:  Damn i missed it

You didn't miss anything special it was a boring session only 3-4 drivers put in a 1 or 2 kinda fast laps, rest of the time they and all the rest drove around testing different fuel loads and car settings.

[Jam_Van_Dam]

Shouldnt these times be in the 1:30's or at worse 1:40's?

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Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes GP had all looked quick during pre-season testing, but no one was quite sure how it would translate come Bahrain. On Friday, there were a few clues to the answer. The leading teams and their rivals reflect on their early progress at Sakhir…

Mercedes GP
Nico Rosberg, P1 - 1: 57.199, 8th; P2 - 1:55.409, 1st
"We improved the car over the course of the day but it didn't feel great initially with the new track, lower downforce and the conditions were very sandy this morning. So we had a few balance issues to work on but it came together very well this afternoon. There are areas where we can still improve but we have a good comparison with the tyre compounds and on the long runs. Overall we learnt a great deal today so it's a positive start to the weekend."

Michael Schumacher, P1 - 1:57.662, 10th; P2 - 1:55.903, 3rd
"We worked very well this afternoon after having a few issues with the balance this morning. The car felt much better in the second session although I am still a little rusty on one-lap runs and need to get back into the routine. On the long runs, the car felt good and once you get into the rhythm, it feels very natural. I'm happy with our work today and feeling ready for the weekend."

Ross Brawn, Mercedes GP team principal
"After the development and testing work over the winter months, it was good to see the cars in action here in Bahrain today. We worked well to overcome some initial balance concerns which Nico and Michael experienced and achieved some very valuable work this afternoon. I feel we still need to make some progress so we need to wait and see how we will match up to our competitors when qualifying gets underway tomorrow."

Norbert Haug, vice-president, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
"The afternoon session went better than the first one this morning. We ran through our planned programme and the team, Nico and Michael got a good understanding of the two different tyre compounds. It looks like we are heading in the right direction but it is definitely too early to say how everybody will perform in tomorrow's first qualifying session of the new season and on Sunday during the race. I expect very strong competitors."

McLaren
Lewis Hamilton, P1 - 1:57.163, 6th; P2 - 1:55.854, 2nd
“Out on track, it’s been very hot so tyre degradation of both compounds has been pretty high. But I think the degradation is something we can handle; you build it into your driving style and moderate the approach to each lap. Still, it’s difficult to know what laptime to target when you’re on a long run. The less you push at the beginning of a stint, the more there is left to push at the end. But it’s difficult to know exactly, and we’re still trying to understand that. The new section of track seems to be very bumpy and tricky - but everyone’s in the same boat. Equally, our car feels very heavy with a high fuel-load - it doesn’t want to stop under braking - but through the high-speed corners it feels quite well balanced. It’s just getting the car stopped that’s tricky: it doesn’t stop as well as when it’s on low tanks. Overall, today didn’t feel too bad. We still don’t really have a full understanding of where all the teams are because everyone was running different fuel-loads. As a result, the positions on today’s timesheets don’t really reflect overall pace too much yet.”

Jenson Button, P1 - 1:57.068, 5th; P2 - 1:56.706s, 4th
“Today’s shown us that looking after the rear tyres is very difficult here, especially on the softer compound. So you find yourself driving with a lot of oversteer through most of the stint. The new section of track is very bumpy. Turns Six and Seven are particularly tough because you’re trying to brake as late as you can, and, if you do that, the car hits the ground, you bounce all over the place and it’s very difficult to see where you’re going. So you have to brake earlier, and more gently, so the front doesn’t dip through that part of the corner - and that positions you better for the next turn. We’re still working on our set-up - and that’s not something you can really do in the second session because you’re working on a tyre back-to-back programme and the track’s so busy. We know where the car is now and we know where we want it to be, so there’s work to be done this evening to improve things overnight. I think we did an okay job today. We can be reasonably happy with the performance of the car, although we know there are areas we still need to work on. The basic car is working well, but we’re not quite there with the balance yet.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“After a long and incredibly busy winter, it’s fantastic to be back competing at a racetrack with all our competitors – particularly here in Bahrain, where our hosts always do so much to make every team feel so welcome. It’s a fantastic venue and the perfect place to kick off the world championship. Of course, today was very much about establishing a benchmark for the rest of the weekend. With the track still very green and dusty and, in some places, quite bumpy, we concentrated on establishing a solid base set-up for both drivers before moving on to evaluate the two tyre compounds over the course of several longer stints. As you’d expect, the larger fuel-loads still make accurate comparison of the teams difficult, but we’re optimistic that our pace relative to our closest rivals appears to be competitive. This afternoon, Lewis had a small issue when the nosebox camera detached itself during a run - but it caused no damage and he was able to continue. Our focus now turns towards understanding each tyre’s behaviour and finessing the car’s balance for tomorrow afternoon’s qualifying session. We feel we’ve made a solid start to our weekend.”

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, P1 - 1:57.943, 13th; P2 - 1:56.459, 5th
“So, the first day of the first race. Unfortunately we didn’t get a lot of running today. The track was still green this morning, so everyone was just checking their cars. In the second practice I had to have the brakes changed and Mark couldn’t do the whole session, so it wasn’t ideal. I would have liked more track time, but it’s not Christmas and we’re not given things for free. We have a lot of work to do, but we know where we need to improve, so we will work on that.”

Mark Webber, P1 -1:57.255, 9th; P2 - 2:00,444, 17th
“Not such a good day and not enough mileage. We missed out a bit this afternoon; I had a gearbox problem, so the team made a precautionary stop with the car which ended P2 early. We’ll have to regroup and get what we can out of today - we’ll be focusing on qualifying in tomorrow’s practice. We still learnt some stuff today and Seb looked at the tyres. You can already see that it’s going to be competitive this year, it’s going to be a good fight out there.”

Renault
Vitaly Petrov, P1 -1:58.880, 16th; P2 - 1:56.750, 8th
"It was a great feeling to be out in the car for the first time this morning, but we had a busy programme so I got straight down to work. We had a few small problems to begin with, but we will work hard overnight to try and improve the car. My first F1 qualifying session tomorrow will be very interesting."

Robert Kubica, P1 - 1:57.041, 3rd; P2 - 1:58.155, 15th
"The conditions today were totally different to winter testing with high track and ambient temperatures. That was something new for everybody and it had a big effect on the tyres, which is why we did a couple of runs to observe the tyre degradation, followed by some set-up work. During the first session the new part of the track was quite dusty and slippery, but it improved during the day. I expect the track to improve a lot more over the weekend, too. Overall, it was a pretty good day."

Alan Permane, Renault chief race engineer
"Robert did everything we expected of him today and Vitaly also had a very solid first day of practice as an F1 driver. We spent the two sessions running on a variety of fuel loads in order begin our preparations for both qualifying and the race. The two tyre compounds are behaving as we expected and are similar to the tyres we used at this circuit last year, with the super soft compound performing very well. In terms of car balance, there is still a little bit of understeer that we need to dial out overnight, but the rear end is stable and we have a good car under braking, which is what you need at this track. All in all, it's a satisfying start to the weekend."

BMW Sauber
Pedro de la Rosa, P1 -2:00.250, 17th; P2 - 1:57.255, 10th
"Well, it was not easy. We managed to make the car feel better during the day, but we definitely need to improve the set-up for tomorrow as much as we can. The overall grip level is very low out there and the new part is really bumpy. One bump especially before turn seven I find dangerous because the cars are bottoming there a lot. The heat is no issue at all. I don't regard this circuit as physically very demanding anyway."

Kamui Kobayashi, P1 - 2:01.388, 18th; P2 - 1:57.352, 11th
"After we lost some track time this morning because of a puncture, we were able to complete our programme in the afternoon. We now have to look at the set-up again. I have the impression the bumpy new infield is pretty difficult for us, but we will work on that. I have no complaints about the heat either, as I definitely prefer it compared to the winter in Europe."

Willy Rampf, BMW Sauber head of engineering
"We mainly concentrated on race preparation today, so consequently we were running on a high fuel load for most of the time. We want to be sure to find a set-up which is acceptable for the race distance. We will work on the qualifying set-up tomorrow. It's the first time this year we are running in climate conditions like this, so we still have a lot of work to do. Kamui suffered a puncture, which was caused by a piece of debris, but apart from that the cars ran reliably."

Force India
Adrian Sutil, P1 - 1:56.583, 1st; P2 - 1:57.361, 12th
“It's time to race now after so long out of the car! This morning we were checking all the systems and set-up we learnt over testing but nobody really knew where we were going to be. It's our goal to get two cars through to Q3 for this weekend and I think we now have a very good baseline with the car and good downforce compared to last year. We can be a top ten runner with this car this year and myself and Tonio are working well together. If we can qualify in the top ten now it can lead to decent points, which is, at the end of the day, what we want to do consistently this season. I would say it's a promising start to get there, for sure.”

Vitantonio Liuzzi, P1 - 1:57.194, 7th; P2 - 1:57.833, 14th
“Overall it was a positive day and we got through all the programme. We learnt quite a lot about the car with these kind of hot conditions, which we weren't able to do in the cool of the winter testing. The car is reacting well to different fuel loads and to different tyres and overall we can be pretty happy with the results at the end of this first Friday. I think we are in a good way for tomorrow. For sure we could improve our single lap time, but the race pace looks good. A positive start to the weekend.”

Dominic Harlow, Force India chief race engineer
“Our objectives today were to assess cooling, brakes and tyres for this event whilst working a little on set-up, downforce level and ratio selection and testing a couple of new items on the car in FP1. We're pleased with the results and I think that our tyre management in the hot conditions looks good. The circuit changes for this year's race are a definite positive for the event and should make for a good race on Sunday.”

Toro Rosso
Jaime Alguersuari, P1 - 1:57.722, 11th; P2 - 1:59.799, 16th
“A good day in which we did all the laps we could, trying many different things. I think we improved during the day, but it’s hard to know where you are with the wide range of fuel loads being used. I feel the performance is there and if we have another nice day tomorrow, then we should be able to get the most out of the car. The track was very green this morning, but it started to rubber in this afternoon. The new section is nothing special and very slow, but I knew that from working on the simulator, which meant I already had an idea where to turn in and where were the braking points.”

Sebastien Buemi, P1 - 1:58.399, 14th; P2 - no time, 23rd
“I’m glad I spent plenty of time driving this track on our simulator, as I did no timed laps this afternoon, because of a problem with the car. The changes to the track were much as I expected and there is a big bump at Turn Six. There are no passing places in the new section, but it makes for a longer track which is more interesting to drive. You need to be competitive in Sector Two for a good lap time, which means you must compromise between needing high downforce for this slow part, while less downforce will make you quicker in Sectors One and Two. Fortunately, we will be able to analyse Jaime’s data and start from a better position tomorrow. However, when you miss most of Friday testing, it doesn’t make life easy. But we have to live with that and concentrate on tomorrow.”

Lotus
Heikki Kovalainen, P1 - 2:03.848, 20th; P2 - 2:00.873, 18th
Jarno Trulli, P1 - 2:03.970, 21st; P2 - 2:00.960, 19th
Mike Gascoyne, Lotus chief technical officer
“A good day for the team after a very long night preparing the cars for today. Everyone worked very hard and it was satisfying to see us first out on track and then put in a solid performance throughout the day. We tried an aero upgrade this afternoon and we’ll look at the results of that in this afternoon’s debrief, but now we’re looking forward to putting in another professional performance tomorrow in qualifying.”

[icegirljenni]

(03-12-2010 04:02 PM)Jam_Van_Dam Wrote:  Damn i missed it

You hardly miss anything. It was a boring session. I hope the weekend will not be deadly boring

[TheProdigalSon]

I don't think I have ever enjoyed watching practice but this one was particularly mediocre.

[icegirljenni]

Mike come and join us on Live Chat tomorrow. the more people the merrier right now only me, tension and chrissie

[Tension_36th]

Yeah there was more fun making cheeky comments on the chat forums than watching the actual practice. We had more of ze punihsment sessions as well.

(03-12-2010 04:32 PM)Jam_Van_Dam Wrote:  Shouldnt these times be in the 1:30's or at worse 1:40's?

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The track has got a new section added to it, pretty slow corners to be brief.

[Jam_Van_Dam]

(03-13-2010 12:10 AM)Tension_36th Wrote:  Yeah there was more fun making cheeky comments on the chat forums than watching the actual practice. We had more of ze punihsment sessions as well.

(03-12-2010 04:32 PM)Jam_Van_Dam Wrote:  Shouldnt these times be in the 1:30's or at worse 1:40's?

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The track has got a new section added to it, pretty slow corners to be brief.

Ahh that explains it then, i didnt know that.

Assume it will be less laps this time around

[Tension_36th]

(03-13-2010 04:06 AM)Jam_Van_Dam Wrote:  Assume it will be less laps this time around

Correct.

Last year it was 57 laps this year it will be 49 laps

[Tension_36th]

Alonso on top but Mclaren where definitely holding back, so were some other big names. This qualifying will be very unpredictable.

[Forza Fernando]

GO FERNY GO

[Tension_36th]

Join us in the live chat room for the qualifying. The link is above on the forum next to the time clock.