11/06/2005
NEWS STORY
Narain Karthikeyan and Tiago Monteiro enjoyed productive free practice sessions to fine-tune the cars to their qualifying and race set-up and showed fairly good pace. Karthikeyan experienced a small gearbox related problem at the end of the third session, which was solved for the last Free Practice. In the afternoon, Karthikeyan set a time of 1.18.664. Team mate Monteiro finished 18th overall with a time of 1:19.034. Both drivers had a clean qualifying lap, were relatively satisfied with the car’s balance and are confident that they have a reliable car for tomorrow's 71-lap race.
Narain Karthikeyan: My qualifying time was ok. I think I did a clean enough lap. I had the impression that the track has changed quite a lot since this morning, it was a bit more slippery and the track temperature was high. It is also very hard on the brakes. I am sure we have made the right choice of tyres and I hope I will have a good race tomorrow.
Tiago Monteiro: My lap was pretty good; I was pushing really hard until the last corner where I made a mistake which cost me some time. However, I am quite satisfied with the balance of the car. It will be a long and challenging race tomorrow, especially if it is that hot but I think we will be ok. I am looking forward to that.
Adrian Burgess: We had a balance change for both drivers from this morning and we are reasonably happy with the preparations and car set up for the Grand Prix tomorrow. The race will be long, we are satisfied with the decisions made and hope we will be there at the end.