F1 Barcelona 2011 - FRI - Free Practice (VMM)

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Barcelona, Spain, May 20, 2011

LEWIS HAMILTON
- MP4-26A-03
- P1 programme: 19 lap, 1m26.988s (+1.846s), 6th
- P2 programme: 27 laps, 1m22.509s (+0.039s), 2nd

“It’s difficult to get an accurate read on pace: we stuck to our programme today and didn’t appear to be too far off, but you never know what fuel-loads or engine levels the other teams are running.


“Still, we got some good data and made some positive improvements so, in all likelihood, we look as competitive today as we have in the past. We have taken some small steps forward – we put a new front-wing on and it naturally appeared to be a little bit better.

“Globally, it’s not too bad. It didn’t feel too good this morning on the harder tyre, which was difficult to switch on and difficult to make last, but this afternoon’s running was very positive.

“There’s a big difference between the two Pirelli compounds - and that will hopefully have a positive impact on the show this weekend!”

JENSON BUTTON
- MP4-26A-04
- P1 programme: 22 laps, 1m27.138s (+1.996s), 9th
- P2 programme: 32 laps, 1m23.188s (+0.718s), 4th

“This morning was spent running through the new systems on the car; this afternoon was the time to push a bit harder and get a proper feel for things. I’m not particularly happy with the balance - I’m struggling with the rear-end, which isn’t something I like - but I’m going to work to improve that overnight.

“There is more pace in the car, we’ve just got to unleash it and find a balance that I like. The longer run was reasonable, even if we got a slightly different result than we expected.

“But it’s all good information and I think we can get a good balance for the race - now I need to focus on sorting out the rear-end for qualifying.”

MARTIN WHITMARSH
Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
“For this morning’s session, we deliberately followed separate programmes on each car to ensure we could log as much data as possible with our planned upgrades. We limited running to the same fuel-load and the same tyres for the entirety of the session, and also ran without DRS; that meant that our times throughout P1 were not particularly representative.

“However, we logged a significant amount of positive data and were able to merge our two divergent development paths into a singular programme for this afternoon - with encouraging results. While neither Lewis nor Jenson were completely happy with the balance of their cars, it seems as if we’ve made some positive progress.

“Inevitably, we still have a significant amount of data to sift through this evening, but we feel confident that we can take a further step in the right direction for tomorrow. All in all, a positive day.”































* Official photos and report courtesy of VODAFONE MCLAREN MERCEDES *

Copyright © 2011, Mercedes-Benz-Blog. All rights reserved.

F1 Barcelona 2011 - FRI - Free Practice (MGP)

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Barcelona, Spain, May 20, 2011

MERCEDES GP PETRONAS drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher finished today’s practice sessions at the Circuit de Catalunya in sixth and seventh places respectively on the timesheets.


• The team’s programme for today focused on evaluating the new developments to the MGP W02 car for this weekend.
• Tyre evaluations, particularly with the new Pirelli hard compound tyre, took priority in the afternoon session.
• Nico completed 64 laps today, with Michael covering 62 laps, as the team completed a busy and successful programme.

Nico Rosberg
“It was a good day in terms of set-up and we learned quite a few things about our car. Of course, it’s difficult to say where we really are because the hard tyres didn’t work so well today and it was very windy. However, we had a nice long run and our preparation with the car is certainly better compared to the last race. The updates are working quite well so far, and thanks for that to the boys in the factory.”

Michael Schumacher
“We have had quite a reasonable Friday and have clearly demonstrated an upwards tendency with our improvements seeming to work well. Saying that, the other teams have improved too, so without having had a chance to look deeper into the data, I would say that we may be fighting for the third row. We will continue to work further on our performance for tomorrow.”

Ross Brawn
“We have a number of new items on the car here which we wanted to evaluate today, and we have successfully achieved that. It was a pretty comprehensive programme and, as always, we will piece together all of the data tonight, and decide how we will approach the rest of the weekend. We’ve got to find some performance on the car, but today was a reasonable start.”

Norbert Haug
“A first day with a total of 126 laps for Michael and Nico gave us the opportunity to learn a lot about the new prime tyre which has not been tested before at this track. At the beginning, it looked difficult to make this tyre work for most of the teams, however we have learned a lot today which will be useful to get the set-up of our cars right tomorrow and on Sunday. Our target for the rest of the weekend is to again be in the top five as at the last two races.”



























* Official photos and report courtesy of MERCEDES GP PETRONAS *

Copyright © 2011, Mercedes-Benz-Blog. All rights reserved.