Brisgestone teams in good form at Imola
By Bridgestone
April 21 2006
|
Bridgestone San Marino GP
Friday Practice |
| |
|
Bridgestone
Motorsport's teams were on good form today at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino as
they hit the track for the first time ahead of this weekend's San Marino
Grand Prix. Bridgestone has brought new compounds to Imola and the teams
were busy deciding which to run. Scuderia Ferrari's Michael Schumacher set
the fastest lap of the day with a time of 1m24.751s. Fellow Bridgestone
runner WilliamsF1 third driver, Alex Wurz, set the third fastest time of the
day while running a total of 50 laps, enabling his team-mates Mark Webber
and Nico Rosberg to complete very few laps.
Panasonic
Toyota Racing's Jarno Trulli had a productive day, setting competitive lap
times but his team-mate Ralf Schumacher had his running cut short with a
mechanical problem. MF1 Racing's Christijan Albers seemed to be relishing a
return to Europe, posting some solid times in both of today's sessions. The
teams now have one more session on Saturday morning before deciding their
final tyre choices ahead of the afternoon qualifying session.
Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager, said: "Track
conditions were dusty this morning but this is normal for a Friday. We also
found that the areas which have had new tarmac laid down were lacking in
grip but we expect these sections to improve as the weekend progresses. The
Bridgestone teams got plenty of tyre work done today with Alex Wurz in
particular providing some good comparison data between the 'hard' and 'soft'
specifications. Looking at the lap times it seems both should be competitive
this weekend. On the whole we saw some promising times from the majority of
the Bridgestone runners, which bodes well for the race on Sunday.
We shall now go
and analyse the lap times and wear rates before giving the teams our
opinions ahead of their final tyre choices. What was good to see today was
that while we brought compounds for a cooler European climate, they have
performed very well in the warm conditions we have experienced today,
demonstrating a broad working range." |
| |
Bridgestone Driver Practice Rank Practice Rank
Team Session 1 Session 2
Ferrari M Schumacher 1:24.751 1st 1:25.371 2nd
F Massa 1:26.596 7th 1:25.879 5th
Toyota R Schumacher - 20th 1:27.639 22nd
J Trulli 1:26.417 5th 1:26.029 7th
WilliamsF1 M Webber - - 1:27.157 19th
N Rosberg - - 1:26.989 17th
A Wurz 1:25.132 2nd 1:26.328 8th
MF1 T Monteiro 1:29.697 15th 1:27.544 21st
C Albers 1:28.048 10th 1:26.783 14th
G Mondini 1:28.969 12th 1:28.833 26th
Super Aguri T Sato 1:31.217 17th 1:29.870 27th
Y Ide 1:31.482 18th 1:31.042 28th
Temperatures Ambient Track Weather
AM - Practice 24C 35C Sunny
PM - Practice 21-23-22C 29-31C Sunny |
|
|
 |
Bookmark or share this story with: