Site logo

Raikkonen sets blistering pace at Silverstone (with pictures)

NEWS STORY
03/06/2005

McLaren, and in particular Kimi Raikkonen, continued to set an electric pace at Silverstone today.

The Finn's fastest lap was over 1.5s quicker than anything anyone else could manage today, and 2.2s quicker than teammate Juan Pablo Montoya.

After the rain on Wednesday and (almost) ideal conditions on Thursday, the weather on the final day was mixed, with sunshine in the morning, and a couple of light showers and then a heavy downpour in the afternoon.

Raikkonen and Montoya continued with tyre testing for the British Grand Prix. However, Juan Pablo had an oil leak from the gearbox on his car at 10:20, which contaminated the clutch and lead to the gearbox being changed. After rain had set in at 15:20 testing had to be continued on wet weather tyres.

The Colombian was back on track before the lunch break. Kimi, meanwhile, had a productive day completing 82 laps.

"After having covered more than three Grands Prix distances with my engine yesterday and today, I am very happy with how the test went," said the Finn. "I am now looking forward to getting back on track in Montreal next Friday."

"We had a good session this week," added Montoya, "there were a couple of small issues as is always the case with testing, but the team resolved them quickly, and I was able to cover over 400 kms in total."

Second and third quickest were the Toyotas of Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli. It's been a hectic week for the Japanese team which has also been testing at Monza, with Trulli commuting between the two circuits.

"Yeah, (I've been) pretty busy you might say! And it was busy in the car as well," said the Italian. "I did over 500kms on Wednesday at Monza, then flew to England and ran over 100 laps on the first day here because we had a big programme of performance tyre testing to work through for the British GP.

"The circuit conditions were not ideal on the first day because the surface was pretty 'green' and there wasn't much grip at first," he continued. "That complicates things a little when you are doing performance comparison tests.

"On Friday we concentrated on more tyre development, this time on longer runs and had some good results. I lost a bit of time in the morning with a precautionary engine change and then we had some typical British weather, which at least allowed us to do some running with intermediate tyres in the afternoon."

"As well as the tyre comparisons we also managed to do some damper evaluation as well before the rain came this afternoon," added Ralf.

Fourth quickest was Giancarlo Fisichella, who was partnered by World Championship leader Fernando Alonso.

The French team continued with a programme centred around further tyre testing and set-up development. Fernando lost track-time as a result of mechanical problems in the morning, nonetheless the team completed high mileage to get firm directions on tyre choice.

"We completed another solid day's running, although some problems meant we did not complete as many laps as we hoped to," admitted chief test engineer Christian Silk. "However, both drivers obtained good information on the tyres, and we continue the set-up work begun yesterday.

LATEST NEWS

more news >

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images
  • Pitpass.com latest F1/Formula 1 images

POST A COMMENT

or Register for a Pitpass ID to have your say

Please note that all posts are reactively moderated and must adhere to the site's posting rules and etiquette.

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

 

No comments posted as yet, would you like to be the first to have your say?

Share this page

X

Copyright © Pitpass 2002 - 2024. All rights reserved.

about us  |  advertise  |  contact  |  privacy & security  |  rss  |  terms