19/05/2005
NEWS STORY
Bridgestone Motorsport's three teams: Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, Jordan Grand Prix and Minardi F1; got their Monaco Grand Prix off to a start today in warm and sunny conditions. The teams spent both their one-hour long practice sessions evaluating their two Bridgestone tyre specifications and working on car set-ups for the only street circuit on the F1 calendar. Michael Schumacher had a strong first session setting the fourth fastest time but cut short his second session to investigate a vibration. His teammate Rubens Barrichello concentrated on the set-up of his car so he can be expected to be running higher up the rankings on Saturday. Meanwhile, Jordan's Robert Doornbos and Minardi's Patrick Friesacher seemed to have settled in well on the challenging circuit, outpacing their respective teammates in both sessions. The Formula One teams now have a day's break before resuming running on Saturday.
Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager: "The Bridgestone teams tried both their tyre specifications this afternoon. Ferrari unfortunately didn't do too much running but apart from that the tyres looked good, wear appearance was nice and we got a picture of the performance of each specification. So, as always, following our tyre checks this evening and an analysis of the data, we will make our recommendations to each of our three teams."
Ross Brawn, Technical Director of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: "We had a vibration on Michael's car and chose to stop because it's not a circuit to take any chances on and it was getting worse during the session. We've now got to find out where that was coming from. It was there with both sets of tyres so they don't seem to be the problem. On Rubens' car we've got some work to do on set-up to see if we can make some improvements. At various stages we were happy with the car balance and perhaps went the wrong way towards the end of the session on set-up with Rubens. The track was getting quicker every five minutes and we lost the trail a bit. But, we'll go through everything tonight and luckily we have a spare day tomorrow."