09/06/2006
NEWS STORY
Team McLaren Mercedes drivers' Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen finished today's second free practice session in 14th and 21st positions respectively with lap times of 1:23.199 and 1:23.915. Juan Pablo completed 10 laps in this session whilst Kimi was out on track for four laps. However Kimi's running was cut short by a fuel pump problem. Both drivers completed one installation lap in the first practice session this morning as planned.
Juan Pablo Montoya: "We tested at Silverstone at the end of April and gathered a lot of data, but obviously it’s quite a bit warmer today. The balance of the car was not perfect, but we still have practice tomorrow to solve this. We managed to complete our planned programme where we focused on tyre selection with Michelin, but we are still not 100 per cent sure what direction we want to go. The Free Practice session tomorrow morning will give us more of an idea of where we are compared to the competition."
Kimi Raikkonen: "As usual we were conserving tyres and didn't want to put too much mileage on the engine, so we were not planning to do a lot of running today. However a fuel pump problem meant that we didn't complete our short programme, but as we have been testing here we have a lot of data to work with. Tomorrow is when the action really starts and hopefully we should be able to put in a good showing,"
Ron Dennis: "It's great to be at our home Grand Prix at Silverstone. Kimi's practice was shorter than planned as a result of a mechanical fuel pump problem. This is a little frustrating but should not affect us too much as we completed a lot of testing here at the end of April. At this test it was obviously a lot colder and consequently Juan Pablo concentrated on Michelin tyre selection today to primarily evaluate the effect of the higher ambient temperature on our earlier tyre choices."
Norbert Haug: "The usual limited programme on a Friday where we focused on race set-up and tyre evaluation work with Michelin, so we will see more tomorrow."
To check out our Silverstone free practice gallery, click here