Virgin Racing’s debut Grand Prix preparations got underway in Bahrain today for the first two practice sessions for Sunday’s 2010 season opener.
Another long night of preparation at the Bahrain International Circuit really tested the race team’s mettle as they took to the track for this morning’s session. With that in mind, the emphasis was on a slow steady start to the long list of set-up and tyre evaluation items that defines the Friday programme.
Mercedes GP Petronas
Ross Brawn
"After the development and testing work over the winter months, it was good to see the cars in action here in Bahrain today. We worked well to overcome some initial balance concerns which Nico and Michael experienced and achieved some very valuable work this afternoon. I feel we still need to make some progress so we need to wait and see how we will match up to our competitors when qualifying gets underway tomorrow."
Norbert Haug
"The afternoon session went better than the first one this morning. We ran through our planned programme and the team, Nico and Michael got a good understanding of the two different tyre compounds. It looks like we are heading in the right direction but it is definitely too early to say how everybody will perform in tomorrow's first qualifying session of the new season and on Sunday during the race. I expect very strong competitors."
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
“After a long and incredibly busy winter, it’s fantastic to be back competing at a racetrack with all our competitors – particularly here in Bahrain, where our hosts always do so much to make every team feel so welcome. It’s a fantastic venue and the perfect place to kick off the world championship.
“Of course, today was very much about establishing a benchmark for the rest of the weekend. With the track still very green and dusty and, in some places, quite bumpy, we concentrated on establishing a solid base set-up for both drivers before moving on to evaluate the two tyre compounds over the course of several longer stints.
“As you’d expect, the larger fuel-loads still make accurate comparison of the teams difficult, but we’re optimistic that our pace relative to our closest rivals appears to be competitive.
“This afternoon, Lewis had a small issue when the nosebox camera detached itself during a run – but it caused no damage and he was able to continue.
“Our focus now turns towards understanding each tyre’s behaviour and finessing the car’s balance for tomorrow afternoon’s qualifying session. We feel we’ve made a solid start to our weekend.”
AT&T Williams F1
Sam Michael, Technical Director
“It was a very busy day with the usual teething problems. We lost some track time due to an electrics problem in the garage in the morning and we also had minor technical issues to resolve on the cars. We then had a much more productive afternoon looking at race set-ups and qualifying preparation. We have more work to do, but nothing that looks unachievable. It has been a marathon effort from everyone at Williams and Cosworth to get us to this stage and soon the hard work will start to pay off.
Renault F1 Team
Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer
“Robert did everything we expected of him today and Vitaly also had a very solid first day of practice as an F1 driver. We spent the two sessions running on a variety of fuel loads in order begin our preparations for both qualifying and the race. The two tyre compounds are behaving as we expected and are similar to the tyres we used at this circuit last year, with the super soft compound performing very well. In terms of car balance, there is still a little bit of understeer that we need to dial out overnight, but the rear end is stable and we have a good car under braking, which is what you need at this track. All in all, it’s a satisfying start to the weekend.”
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
Stefano Domenicali
“We had set ourselves an agenda based on preparation for Sunday’s race and we are pleased with what we have seen so far. Even more so than in the past, it is difficult to get an idea of the pecking order on Friday, because the fuel levels of the cars during these three hours of running can vary quite considerably. Now, we must try and prepare as well as possible for tomorrow’s qualifying, which will be difficult and closely contested for a variety of reasons, without losing sight of the fact that the points are only handed out on Sunday afternoon.”
Chris Dyer
"We are reasonably pleased with the work done today. We had a very busy programme and we got through just about all of it: the only problem was a loss of air from a tyre on Alonso’s car which interrupted his long run. We picked up a lot of data which we will use to decide on set-up and strategy for the rest of the weekend. It’s hard to say where we are compared to the other teams in terms of performance and we will only find that out tomorrow afternoon. The new part of the circuit is rather narrow and at some points the surface is very bumpy, but it does not present any particular problems for the car.”
BMW Sauber F1 Team
Willy Rampf, Technical Director
“We mainly concentrated on race preparation today, so consequently we were running on a high fuel load for most of the time. We want to be sure to find a set-up which is acceptable for the race distance. We will work on the qualifying set-up tomorrow. It’s the first time this year we are running in climate conditions like this, so we still have a lot of work to do. Kamui suffered a puncture, which was caused by a piece of debris, but apart from that the cars ran reliably.”
Force India F1 Team
Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer
"Our objectives today were to assess cooling, brakes and tyres for this event whilst working a little on set-up, downforce level and ratio selection and testing a couple of new items on the car in FP1. We're pleased with the results and I think that our tyre management in the hot conditions looks good. The circuit changes for this year's race are a definite positive for the event and should make for a good race on Sunday."
Lotus Racing
Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne
“A good day for the team after a very long night preparing the cars for today. Everyone worked very hard and it was satisfying to see us first out on track and then put in a solid performance throughout the day. We tried an aero upgrade this afternoon and we’ll look at the results of that in this afternoon’s debrief, but now we’re looking forward to putting in another professional performance tomorrow in qualifying.”
Virgin Racing
Nick Wirth, Technical Director
“Due to the late arrival of some key new components, we had to work all through last night to have the cars running today, which is not ideal. Thankfully, we haven’t had a reoccurrence of any of the problems that blighted our winter testing. However, we found some interesting new challenges today, ranging from some engine set-up issues which caused handling problems, to the high ambient conditions bizarrely causing off-car electronics to overheat, affecting our ability to communicate with the car. In addition, we had a small gearbox issue on Timo’s car that hampered his running. Having said that, neither car ran low fuel and Timo was unable to test the super-soft tyre. We’ll do a thorough race preparation tonight and focus our attention on qualifying tomorrow.”
HRT F1 Team
Colin Kolles, HRT team principal
"I am proud that our mechanics and engineers managed to make history today in Bahrain. Everything is going to plan, except the lack of sleep for all of us who worked through the night. To make history is not a simple task. The focus today for the team was to be operational and run. We are taking things one step at a time, and building on our competitiveness as the weekend and season goes on. Everyone has produced an amazing effort to make it happen and I would like to thank everyone for their dedication."
