Michael Schumacher:
It was a slightly different Friday to the usual for us due to the fact that we expected rain in the second session, so we set ourselves a bigger workload in the morning. In the second session, we tried a few variations in set-up which worked very well. Overall, I am quite happy with our performance today. We know the competition is tough with some of them looking very strong today. However, I believe we will be in the fight for the win. Now we have to work out the best way to go about achieving that.
Rubens
Barrichello:
This morning's session was very straightforward, but in the afternoon, I encountered a few problems while evaluating the tyres. However, we have a good base line in terms of the set-up of the car to suit this track and I am sure that a bit more work tomorrow morning will get us back on track.
Juan Pablo Montoya:
We made some good evaluation tests today. Track conditions were changing quite a lot throughout the sessions but nevertheless we went through our scheduled programme and I can say I am reasonably happy with the balance of my car. Weather has been better than yesterday, even if still quite cold, and I definitely hope for some more dry running tomorrow.
Marc Gene:
All in all it was a positive day. We have been working on tyre evaluation like everyone today and we also made some set-up changes. The car did not always behave as expected though, so we need to sit down now and carefully go through the data we have collected, in order to have a better understanding of the situation. What tyre we I will use for qualifying and in the race is still undecided at the moment.
David Coulthard:
"An encouraging start to my home grand prix, but its early days and whilst
it's looking good, tomorrow is another day. We have learnt a lot and will
see what the next couple of days bring. MP4-19B is an improvement, and I
feel that it should be possible to get on the podium, so that has to be the
goal."
Kimi Raikkonen:
"We completed our planned programme today and experienced no problems. I
had a positive test here at Silverstone with the 19B a few weeks ago, so I
was quite confident that the car would be good. Hopefully we can continue
to improve it during tomorrow's practice. We were quickest today, but there
is nothing to celebrate yet ? Saturday and Sunday are the important ones."
Jenson Button:
"We completed most of our tyre work today but it's a shame about Anthony's problem. I think we know the direction we're heading in, we just have a lot more work to do to optimise the car in time for qualifying. The support from the crowd has been fantastic already and we just have to keep focused and do everything we can to build on today's performance and get stronger as we head into the race."
Takuma Sato:
"We hoped we would be stronger here today after the positive tests we had earlier in the season. The car isn't performing as well as we'd hoped and we have a lot more work to do to be more competitive for qualifying and the race, as we are looking for a podium finish here. We didn't complete the full tyre evaluation but hopefully there is enough data between the three of us to confirm our choice for tomorrow."
Giancarlo Fisichella:
"I am very pleased, as we have taken a big step forward. The team has done a fantastic job, and if you look what we have achieved with the car since Melbourne it is excellent. This step here in Silverstone is probably the biggest of them all. The car is very well balanced and stable, and I was able to do a very good lap time. I am really, really optimistic, even though my engine problem this morning means that I will lose 10 grid places tomorrow afternoon. The same thing happened at Nurburgring, and we still scored points there, so I'm really looking forward to the race."
Felipe Massa:
"Honestly, I am very happy with my lap time. I used my new tyres early in the session to do a long run, so my lap was achieved on old rubber whereas Giancarlo used his new tyres at the end. The car is well balanced, very consistent and very stable, and I am feeling very optimistic. It is great to know we have such a competitive car."
Mark Webber:
It was an interesting day for us today as we were definitely finding the track conditions slightly more frustrating than normal. The weather conditions were ok but the wind here can really pick up and this was affecting my balance on track. The team has done a good job to prepare the car ahead of this weekend since we only left France four days ago!. I worked on set-up today, balance and tyres, but I need to do more tomorrow ahead of qualifying. We will be looking at our tyre choice this evening and looking at how we can extract more from the R5 this weekend. We had such a strong weekend in Magny-Cours and I would like to continue with that theme this weekend.
Christian Klien:
I managed to complete a good number of laps today and I feel quite comfortable in the car around here. My engineers and I had quite a long list of test items to work through and I am pleased that we managed to get it all completed before it rained. This track can be quite slippery but today the grip was ok for me and this helped. I am going to be working on my tyre choice tonight and also looking ahead to qualifying and our strategy for race day.
Cristiano da Matta:
"A very frustrating first day at Silverstone today with the car behaving similarly to how it did at the test in June. It is bumping a lot and there is a big difference in the balance from high speed to low speed. The only positive thing I can draw from today's session is the fantastic job my crew did to change the gearbox in just 20 minutes after I had a wheel bearing problem at the start of the second session. Their quick reactions and efficient work meant that the problem did not negate our programme that much."
Olivier Panis:
"We had a normal Friday practice, comparing the two compounds of Michelin tyres and working on the set-up of the car. I think we need to work really hard to improve the car for tomorrow because there is definitely a lot more we can get out of it at this track. We will look deep into the data during this afternoon and hopefully make some progress in tomorrow morning's sessions."
Nick Heidfeld:
A fairly positive day as I did a lot of laps and we have benefited from testing here not too long ago to prepare a starting set-up. I'm not quite happy with our balance at the moment: although we have tried a couple of things, we need to make further improvements. Tyre choice is going to be tough although I think we will be stronger on that side than we were in Magny Cours.
Giorgio Pantano:
Today we tried to improve the balance of the car in these conditions, it's also the first time I have driven here with more rubber on the circuit. We had some little balance problems but we worked quite hard today on tyre comparison tests and with our choice for the race we hope to find a better balance on the slower parts of the circuit.
Gianmaria Bruni:
It's not been a bad day at all, but it would have been even better if I hadn't been caught up in traffic on what should have been my quickest lap – it definitely lost me a couple of tenths. I'm also pleased that we were able to try different set-ups today. Bas went in a different direction, and the results look good, so we'll perhaps try that tomorrow. We've done some good work today, and now it would be fantastic if we could hear some good news concerning John. We really miss him.
Zsolt Baumgartner:
We were able to find a good balance for the car, just like we had in Magny-Cours, so it has been a useful day. Unfortunately, in the second session, we had a small gearbox problem, which lost me some valuable track time while it was fixed. That is the reason I was not able to achieve as quick a lap time as I would have liked today.
