23/09/2005
NEWS STORY
Christian Klien's second practice session was cut short today, when he braked on the approach to Turn 10 and lost control of the rear of his car. Spinning 180 degrees, the Austrian went backwards off the track into the tyre wall and sustained rear suspension damage to his RB1. Christian was unhurt in the incident and the team has confirmed his car will be fully repaired ahead of tomorrow's two final practice sessions.
David Coulthard: It was difficult today. I was struggling with entry stability and the car lacked overall grip and balance. I'm pretty surprised actually, as I didn't expect things to be so difficult here, but now we've got a challenge to get on top of things. We know the tyres well and have used them in previous Grands Prix, but it seems more difficult to achieve a good balance with them here. It's due to a combination of things I think, such as the track conditions and temperatures, but it means we're going to struggle a bit this weekend. I could be wrong mind! An alternative quote is that everything's great and I can't wait till tomorrow!
Christian Klien: The first free practice was pretty good. I was quick on both types of tyres and had good balance in the car. However, in the second practice, I lost the rear of the car and spun. It was a strange spin as I went on to the brakes as I normally do, but think I hit a bump or something. I just lost the rear, spun and went backwards into the tyre wall.
Tonio Liuzzi: That was not so easy. We had a problem in the first session when we had a puncture. That made things more difficult as we had to adapt our programme, which had been pretty aggressive and couldn't push so hard. In the second session, we had good long runs; we weren't going for fast lap times, but were concentrating on making sure we had the right tyres for the weekend. I'm pretty happy about the handling of the car. It's a difficult circuit here because the long straight is uphill and you need a lot of power; if the balance of the car isn't good, you'll struggle. But, I think we found a good base today and David and Christian will have to work on the car's handling before the qualifying session tomorrow.
Christian Horner, Sporting Director: The practice times were quite mixed today with Brazilian drivers in third, fourth and fifth position and other cars out of their normal places. As a result it's pretty hard to gauge where we are overall from those two sessions, but we've identified some handling characteristics we need to work on. Christian's okay after his accident, but we need to fully understand what happened. His car sustained rear end suspension damage, but will be fully repaired ahead of tomorrow's final two practice sessions.