13/08/2004
NEWS STORY
SAUBER PETRONAS drivers Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa finished 16th and 22nd respectively after today's first practice sessions for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Giancarlo Fisichella: "Generally we lacked grip today. It was windy at times and the conditions were from lap to lap inconsistent, and understeer was our problem. That's why I went off in Turn Four, I ran wide and then got on to the gravel. Luckily the car wasn't damaged. On long runs we weren't so bad, but we have some set-up work to do."
Felipe Massa: "It was not an easy day! The car was pretty loose both this morning and this afternoon, and I had a lot of understeer. That caught me out in Turn Four this afternoon, just like Giancarlo, but it's just the first day, and the track is still very green."
Willy Rampf (Technical Director): "Our main problem today was lack of grip. As a consequence, this was effecting the car balance quite a lot with understeer in the beginning moving to oversteer. Due to the layout of the track with many directional changes any handling problem is magnified. Our main area to improve the performance is therefore to find a more consistent balance.