02/09/2005
NEWS STORY
Team McLaren Mercedes driver Pedro de la Rosa set the fastest time of the first two practice sessions for this weekend's Italian Grand Prix at Monza; his fastest time of the day being 1:20.201. Team mates Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen were third and fourth fastest with times of 1:21.583 and 1:21.735 respectively. Pedro completed 45 laps in both today's practice sessions, whilst Juan Pablo and Kimi completed 16 and 19 laps respectively.
Kimi Raikkonen: "A productive first practice day, and we achieved fast and consistent times. We still can optimise our set up as it is always very crucial here to find the ideal balance on this low downforce circuit. We can build on our good testing results from last week and should be competitive throughout the rest of the weekend."
Juan Pablo Montoya: "We were quick here today and are looking strong and consistent, so it is a positive start to the weekend. There is still a long way to go, and we have to remain reliable throughout the weekend to achieve the result that our times today promise. "
Pedro de la Rosa: "Unfortunately my second session was cut short, with 12 minutes still to go, with a transmission fault before I had the opportunity to complete the entire programme. However this was not really a problem as we have a lot of information already from today and the test we conducted here last week. The car is quick, it is working very well at the top speeds and everything from the brakes to the Michelin tyres were working perfectly today."
Ron Dennis: "A successful Friday practice where we ran through our programme and achieved the results, in terms of speed and consistency, that we had expected going into this weekend. Unfortunately Pedro's problem finished his run prematurely, but this will not hamper our programme for the weekend."
Norbert Haug: "A first day in Monza with good and consistent lap times for our team. Of course last week's tests have been very helpful for everybody. As a consequence we didn't see a lot of running in both sessions. Our start for the weekend was a good one indeed and our aim is to achieve the same results on Saturday and Sunday."