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Practice Patter - Bahrain Grand Prix |
Felipe Massa:
"I am pleased with this first day of free practice. Right from the start this morning, I found some good settings for the car and then, in the afternoon, the track conditions improved considerably. I think we are working in the right direction in terms of setting up the car and so I feel confident about the rest of the weekend. I like this track and think we will be very competitive. The wind is expected to be stronger tomorrow and on Sunday and that would make driving more difficult, but on the plus side, there will be more grip."
Kimi Raikkonen:
"All in all, I am happy with the way things went this morning and even more so with the afternoon. We tried various different set-ups, starting off with the settings we defined when testing here in February. We picked up a lot of data to work with for qualifying and the race. The car is going well and I think we will be competitive even if it is always difficult to say where we are compared to the others. The performance of both types of tyre is reasonably similar."
Nico Rosberg:
"I am happier with the car here compared to the last race in Malaysia and I think we are back to normal now, which is encouraging. The circuit surface suits our car better, which in turn made it much more enjoyable to drive. Over the two sessions we made some very big set-up changes and I think we've gone into the right direction. It's getting very close with a lot of people in the midfield, but I think we have a good chance to do well this weekend. It was also productive to be reliable today which meant plenty of track time."
Lewis Hamilton:
"It was a shame that I ended what had been a productive day going off the circuit and hitting the barriers at Turn Seven. I was just pushing and sometimes these things happen. I am absolutely fine, and hopefully the damage to the car is not too bad. We would have had to change our engine and gearbox anyway so hopefully I am not going to be too unpopular with the boys in the garage. In the first session we stayed on the same set of tyres throughout. I flatspotted one of them early on but, as it was only Practice One, we chose to save a set of tyres, however we monitored the vibrations closely to make sure that they didn't cause any damage to the car. The circuit was obviously very dirty and continued to evolve throughout both sessions."
Heikki Kovalainen:
"As this track is very hard on brakes this was the focus in the first session - just making sure we got as much data as possible and that everything was working well. The track was very dirty and there was hardly any grip to begin with so we decided there was no point in using more than one set of prime tyres. In the second session we could turn our attention to general set-up work and tyre evaluation. We ran both the option and the prime and there is not that much difference. I am comfortable in the car and looking forward to the rest of the weekend."
Robert Kubica:
"I am happy with today's work. We managed to do quite a lot of laps and worked on the aerodynamic set-up of the F1.08. We consistently improved the car's balance. All in all, it was a very productive day."
David Coulthard:
"I like this circuit. Today went quite well and we've gained some good information, but we've still got quite a challenge to improve traction and rear stability ahead of tomorrow."
Kazuki Nakajima:
"Today we didn't have any problems, so we could use all of the practice time which was great. Initially in the morning session, I struggled a bit, but in the afternoon, we made a big set-up change which was very positive. We have a bit more work to do tomorrow, but it is a good start."
Sebastien Bourdais:
"I got into a good groove this morning with no real problems and we carried on the same way this afternoon. It meant I got quite a bit of running done which is a "first" for a Friday this season for me. So, I'm happy about that. This is my first time at this track and I think it's quite nice, although the three slow corners are extremely slow and that does not seem to suit these cars. The track surface was actually in pretty good shape compared to what I had been expecting in terms of dirt and sand. They cleaned it very well and since the wind died down it greatly helped the situation. The wind is supposed to pick up again for tomorrow and Sunday so it could be a bit of an adventure into the unknown every time we go out."
Nelson Piquet Jr:
