28/08/2009
NEWS STORY
The infamous Spa weather lived up to expectations today with the first of the practice sessions for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix taking place in very different conditions as Brawn GP's Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello took to the race track again just five days after the European Grand Prix in Valencia.
The first practice session this morning began on a dry track but was interrupted after just thirty minutes by a rain shower which sent all the cars back into the pits. As the rain intensified over the remaining hour of the session, Jenson and Rubens went out on the Bridgestone Potenza wet tyres to get some valuable wet weather track time ahead of the weekend.
By contrast, the afternoon practice session proved fine and dry, enabling the team to make good progress with the planned Friday programme. With the focus on aerodynamic, downforce and tyre comparisons, Jenson and Rubens collected some useful data to help refine the set-up of the car overnight ahead of Saturday's qualifying hour.
Jenson Button: "It was a tough session this morning as we weren't able to get much done apart from some wet running at the end. However that experience is good here just in case it rains over the weekend which is always possible at Spa. The second session this afternoon was much more useful. We worked through a few aero and downforce comparisons as well as looking at the tyres. We collected a lot of information but obviously at the moment we're not as quick as we would like to be. There are a few areas that we do need to improve on with the balance but the potential is there to do that ahead of qualifying."
Rubens Barrichello: "We got through a lot of work today which sets the weekend up nicely. There is still some way to go to realise the full potential of the car but as always on a Friday, the lap times don't tell the whole story. It was pretty useful to get some wet running in this morning just in case the weather plays a part in qualifying or the race. The car doesn't feel as competitive as it did in Valencia last weekend but we're going to be in a good position to fight hard in qualifying tomorrow."
Ross Brawn: "A good start to the weekend and we were able to achieve much of our planned testing programme despite the interruptions from the weather this morning. We're not experiencing any issues with tyre temperatures so far which is positive and it's good to see our hard work in this area starting to pay dividends. There is still some way to go to maximise the set-up of the car to the requirements of both drivers so it will be a busy hour of practice tomorrow morning to get ready for qualifying."