22/07/2011
NEWS STORY
Narain Karthikeyan and Daniel Ricciardo finished in 20th and 22nd places respectively after today's first free practice sessions for the Santander German Grand Prix. In the second free practice Vitantonio Liuzzi took over, having handed over his car to Narain Karthikeyan this morning and his 31 lap session was trouble-free. Narain drove 22 laps.
Daniel Ricciardo encountered no problems in the first session and could continue to familiarise himself with the car but he had to pull off to the side of the track after a trail of white smoke came out the back of his car, ending his second practice session prematurely.
Narain Karthikeyan:"It's good to be back in the car. We had a good set-up and a proper session and enough running time to test mechanical parts. Some changes that we made to the car had the effect I was hoping for. I am proud to have kept the 20th position in the classification even if I did not get the lap together. I could have gone quicker."
Vitantonio Liuzzi: "Overall, the afternoon was a good session. I focused a bit on everything. It's important to understand the tyres and how they react for the long distance race. It is also important to improve our speed and the balance in terms of set-up and aerodynamics so we had one and a half hours to work on both and I think we covered both areas. It was a good Friday".
Daniel Ricciardo: "I had an easy start to get used to the car. We worked on the balance of the car and the tyres. A good first session to start my second ever F1 race weekend. Unfortunately we had a small problem with the car in the second session and could not take full advantage of all the track time."
Colin Kolles, Team Principal: "It's Friday practice as usual, and we made good progress despite a second session problem. Narain had a good session in the morning and was still the fastest Indian on four wheels in the World. Unfortunately Daniel's car encountered an engine problem. However, we seem quite competitive on long runs and the balance of the car was good right from the start of the day. We will have a lot of work to do tomorrow - assuming it is dry to prepare our race strategy."
To check out our Nurburgring practice gallery, click here