22/04/2005
NEWS STORY
Jean Todt: We are happy to be here at Imola for the first European race. It would be good if the championship started today, but that is not the case and we have come to the fourth round of the season, with a big gap to close to the leaders. This is a special race for the team, as it is the nearest to Maranello and for me on a personal level, as I have the honour, along with Michael, of once again taking on the role of ambassador of the Republic of San Marino. As usual today, we worked on car set-up and a comparison of the two types of Bridgestone tyre at our disposal. While taking into account the usual Friday unknowns – amount of fuel on board and variable track conditions – our evaluation of today’s work can be a positive one. This Friday has provided an encouraging sign for the rest of the weekend.
Michael Schumacher: We are looking competitive compared to the others, which is a good sign for the rest of the weekend. The car seems to be very strong in most areas and today went well. I am happy with the handling and I had a well balanced car right from the start of the first session, which meant we could get a lot of work done. It is important at this track to have a car with good brakes and one that rides well over the kerbs and the F2005 seems to do that. BAR’s performance was interesting, but we need to know if they were running at race pace or if they were on a light fuel load. I think we can be confident for qualifying and the race.
Rubens Barrichello: I had a reasonable day, apart from a small problem with the car this morning. The set up is getting better, although I was not completely happy with it, but there is room for improvement tomorrow. I think qualifying times will be very close and it is shaping up to be a fun weekend!
Ross Brawn: We were able to do a lot of laps today, as we had plenty of “spare” mileage on the engines as we did not do so many in Bahrain. That has helped to give us a much better picture of the situation and plenty of data for the engineers to use in working on set-up. So, it has been a very productive day. We have seen the classic situation where the softer tyre is quicker on the first lap, but degrades a bit more, while the harder tyre is not so quick on lap one, but is more consistent. We will have to analyse the situation before making a decision on tyres as, at the moment, it is not yet an obvious choice. In general, we are pleased with the performance and the drivers are happy with the cars. We still have enough laps left on the engines to do a good morning’s work tomorrow. Another factor to take into account is that the track condition is going to improve all the way up to the race.