By MF1 media
September 8 2006

Midland F1Racing returned to competition at Monza full of confidence after a very productive test at this circuit a week ago. Despite not completing as many laps as usual for a Friday practice programme, the team made solid progress, ...

... with Christijan Albers able to post the 11th-fastest time (9th-fastest if you were to remove the third drivers' times) in the second session, out of the 27 drivers who took part.

Tiago Monteiro finished Friday free practice 16th fastest, although he was compromised on his quick lap. Test driver Giorgio Mondini encountered minor technical problems in both sessions, but was nevertheless able to provide the team with valuable data.

The team still has set-up work to do this evening in preparation for the all-important qualfiying hour on Saturday, but all the ingredients are in place for continued improvement.

Tiago Monteiro (POR)
Chassis: M16-03, Car #18
First Timed Session Classification: 6th, 1:25.413 (+2.150) 7 laps completed
Second Timed Session Classification: 16th, 1:25.277 (+2.646) 12 laps completed
Quote: "I'd have to say it was a pretty productive day from my point of view, and I think we're going in the right direction. We didn't look out of place all day, and I think we'll be even better as the weekend progresses. I was blocked on my last lap of the afternoon on new tyres, so we couldn't get a proper reference time. But considering the split times, it would have been a pretty nice lap, so that gives us a good measure of confidence heading into tomorrow."

Christijan Albers (NED)
Chassis: M16-02, Car #19
First Timed Session Classification: 8th, 1:25.766 (+2.503) 7 laps completed
Second Timed Session Classification: 11th, 1:24.985 (+2.354) 11 laps completed
Quote: "I don't know how realistic the times were today, because in practice, you can never be sure what the other teams are doing. We just ran through our normal Friday programme and we'll see where we stand tomorrow. But at least everything is working well: the engine feels strong and there were no mechanical issues to speak of. So, in that respect, it was OK, but we still have a lot of work to do. We have some set-up issues to sort out, and the car is still quite difficult to drive. But, as usual, we will find a way to improve from toda y to tomorrow, so I'm not overly concerned."

Giorgio Mondini (SUI)
Chassis: M16-01, T-Car
First Timed Session Classification: 12th, 1:28.444 (+5.181) 7 laps completed
Second Timed Session Classification: 21st, 1:25.586 (+2.955) 29 laps completed
Quote: "Today was not a good day for me, to say the least. I encountered technical problems in the morning that reduced my running time, and that pushed back our whole programme. I was able to run later on, but not at 100%, so I really feel that my times were not indicative of what we're capable of. Hopefully, I was able to provide the engineers with enough data to give Tiago and Christian a good chance in qualifying tomorrow."

Colin Kolles, Managing Director: "It was a normal day's work for us. We had some problems with Giorgio's car, but nothing too serious. Monza is not an ideal circuit for our car, to be honest - we could use a bit more top speed - but all of the drivers did a solid job, and we are in a good position to prepare for qualifying."

Dominic Harlow, Chief Race and Test Engineer: "As we expected, it was a quiet morning, followed by a little more work in the afternoon. The circuit conditions are not quite at the level we had at last week's test, but we think we found a good baseline with the race drivers. Unfortunately, Giorgio had a problem this morning, which was a bit of a one-off, really. We fixed it as quickly as we could and tried to get as much of his normal programme done as possible under the circumstances. We'll build on what we've learned, fine-tuning set-ups and such, and hopefully build on it tomorrow."

Johnny Herbert, Sporting Relations Manager: "We went through a good, albeit condensed, programme that moved us in a good direction for tomorrow. The guys think the balance can be improved even further, which is positive, actually, because it gives them something to work on tonight. The fact that Christijan was 11th today is also encouraging, because we feel that we can improve that little bit more in qualifying."

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