“Timo is still struggling to get the best out of the tyres on the first lap, but I’m sure with a careful check on the data tonight we will improve that. The circuit improved a lot through the day, but the new track surface has not made a big difference. Now we will look to build on this strong start over the rest of the weekend.”
Sam Michael [Williams – technical director]:
“We had a productive day’s running and ran through all of our programme on both cars, checking cooling and the two different tyres to decide how we will use them in the strategy on Sunday. In the first session we had a clutch release bearing problem on Kazuki’s car. The mechanics did a really good job and turned this around quickly to minimise the time lost. We’ll look at the data now and see what additional set-up changes we will consider for tomorrow on top of those we tried today.”
Willy Rampf [BMW Sauber – technical director]:
“We concentrated on the race preparation today and collected a lot of data concerning the tyres. We also tested different aerodynamic configurations. Now we will analyse the data. On Robert’s car we measured a gearbox pressure that was too high. There was a risk of damaging the cooling system; therefore we decided to change the rear end to enable Robert to continue the session. Compliments to the mechanics, who did a great job. We had a dry first day of practice, but we expect some rain for the remainder of the weekend.”
Mike Gascoyne [Force India – chief technical officer]:
“[That was] a useful day, [though] a difficult first session with low grip, both cars having a lot of oversteer and an engine failure on Adrian’s car, which limited his running. We were, however, able to analyse the reasons in the break and improve for the second session.
