By Racing Bulls
May 5 2006

Robert Doornbos gave the numerous Dutch Formula One fans visiting this weekends European GP, something to cheer about after finishing both Free Practises in the top five today. After two installation laps, Doornbos immediately started his work for Michelin by evaluating the two types of compound the French manufacturer brought with them for this weekend. With a difference of less than a second to Alexander Würz who finished first, Doornbos finished the morning session at a deserving fifth position with a best lap of 1:32.944.

Also in the first half of the second Free Practise, Doornbos concentrated on his tyre evaluation programme by driving two high-fuel stints of eight laps each. In between his runs, Doornbos took time to further finetune the set-up of his car to the characteristics of the circuit which is located in the German Eiffel. At the end of the afternoon session, Red Bull Racing assigned their testdriver to complete two ‘performance comparison runs’ on low fuel. By setting a time of 1:33.799, Doornbos finished the day in fourth spot, close behind Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher.

ROBERT DOORNBOS: “Today was productive. After I drove some fans and guests of the team around the circuit in a roadcar yesterday, I found it easy to get in a good rhythm today. Without any problems, I was able to complete my programme successfully and also set some promising laptimes. With the engine update Ferrari gave us for this weekend, I hope David and Christian can impress tomorrow.”

After he had won the tubegliding competition at the first Robert Doornbos fanclubmeeting a couple of weeks ago, Arjan Jongeneel (fanclub member 1108) experienced the day of his life as a special guest of Robert Doornbos and witnessing the Free Practises out of the RBR pitbox. The 26-year old inhabitant of Coevorden (NED) surely gave Doornbos wings!

ROBERT DOORNBOS: “Definitely true! It’s great to give fans this wonderfull experience as a ‘thank you’ for their massive support. But also all the other Dutch fans on the grandstands were fantastic again! As Spa-Francorchamps is not on the calender this year, this weekend feels like a home Grand Prix to me. I hope that all fans have great fun here this weekend!”