27/05/2005
NEWS STORY
Jean Todt: Today was a day like any other, with the team working on car set-up and on choosing between the two types of Bridgestone tyre on offer. A problem with the electronics prevented Michael from completing his entire programme, but Rubens got through all of his. All in all, the situation seems quite good, with the car-engine-Bridgestone tyre package appearing to be competitive. Now we must carefully analyse the data we have acquired to finalise tyre and set-up choice, which will be crucial for tomorrow's qualifying -which is now the only grid-deciding session – and for the race on Sunday.
Michael Schumacher: In performance terms, it looks quite good so far, as we are not so far off the times of the quickest guys, not counting the Friday-only drivers, so generally I would say it is going well this weekend. It's a shame I had an electrical problem. It was nothing major, but there was not enough time to fix it before the end of the session. But we have enough data from Rubens' car on which to base our decisions regarding set-up and especially which way to go on tyre choice.
Rubens Barrichello: Today, the situation looks much better than in recent races and there is no doubt that the Nurburgring suits us better than Monaco. We seem to be pretty quick here, whatever the fuel load. I think we can be very strong this weekend, but it is still too early to see where we stand compared to the others. Bridgestone has done a good job and the tyres are performing consistently.
Ross Brawn: A good day in general. The cars seem to be well balanced and the tyres are performing consistently over the first lap. We had an electrical problem on Michael's car, which we have yet to analyse. It meant we lost the second half of the afternoon session, which was a shame. However, we got some good work done on the tyre front and now we can analyse the data tonight to decide on which type of tyre to use for qualifying and the race.