Michael Schumacher who has an appalling record here said that he likes the changes to the track, and that the new layout has made it more fun to drive although it is a lot more demanding on the driver than the previous layout. As the newly crowned world champion Schumacher got a brilliant reception for his German fans, as is the case every year. Schumacher finished the day on top just ahead of his team mate.

“I like this new circuit and in my opinion, it is a great success,2 said Michael. “Of course it requires a lot more aerodynamic downforce than the old Hockenheim and that means the Motodrom section has become more fun to drive. The new layout flows nicely and there are some overtaking opportunities. It is quite demanding. I had a good day. As usual at Hockenheim I get a warm reception from the fans. It is a pleasure to be here as they all support me and push me forward.”

Rubens Barrichello was also keen to add his approval to the new circuit, the track was dirty on Friday and as this clears up the lap times will begin to fall. Barrichello was second quickest overall today after leading the way in the morning session. The Brazilian completed a total of 49 laps in which he tried various settings on the car as well as evaluating the tyre choice available to himself and the team.

“I like this new circuit. It is good to drive, even if of course, it is still a bit dirty and green as it has never been used before,” remarked Rubens. “We experimented with various different settings on the car, as well as carrying out a tyre evaluation programme: all of this while learning our way around the new layout. Everything went fine and it was a quiet day.”

Sporting Director Jean Todt was happy with the data gathered in today’s sessions. Todt was happy with the work done today but knows full well that Friday is only just the beginning of another tough weekend for the team. However he is once again confident from what he has seen today that the Ferrari duo will be strong for the remainder of the weekend.

“Team morale is even higher than usual after the result achieved last Sunday in Magny-Cours, when Michael Schumacher took his third consecutive Drivers’ World Championship title with Ferrari,” Said Todt. “Today is the first time we have run on the new Hockenheim layout, which has proved popular with both our drivers. We therefore did a lot of work aimed at gathering as much data as possible on how the cars handle on this circuit. Obviously, we concentrated on the usual pre-race work and on evaluating the two different types of tyre at our disposal. For the next couple of days we can expect the weather to turn hotter and that might see a slight change compared with today’s situation. We are confident that in tomorrow’s qualifying, we will be fighting for places on the two front rows of the grid.”

Technical chief Ross Brawn was also happy with the work done today, and as usual the Englishman was more concerned with the tyre choice that the team has to make prior to tomorrow’s qualifying session. Brawn has not yet decided on one tyre or the other as the differences between compounds are not so clear at this track.

“This was a slightly different to usual first day as we are tackling pretty much a new track,” said Ross. “Both drivers said they liked the circuit a great deal. As usual, we tried both types of tyre. It is not quite clear which is the best choice and we will have to study the data. The cars were reasonably well balanced and we managed to work through our entire programme. The track seems quite hard on brakes. I think an interesting race is in prospect, especially as there appear to be some overtaking opportunities.”