22/07/2011
NEWS STORY
The first two Free Practice sessions for Timo Glock's home Grand Prix at the Nürburgring took place today in the typically cool conditions provided by the Eifel mountains.
With a track temperature of only 19°C, the morning session started with both Timo and Jerome focusing on engine and aero mapping tests. Both drivers tried out different set-up directions based on what the team learned last week at the straight line test at RAF Cottesmore in the UK. After deciding to save the Pirelli P-Zero development tyres for the second session of the day, the main difficulty for the drivers was getting the Prime tyres up to temperature when they were out on track. Timo completed 23 laps and Jerome, 22.
In the afternoon the track conditions improved, with both drivers on Option tyres improving on their morning lap times. Timo completed a further 32 laps while Jerome added another 33 laps to his tally, achieving a total of 110 laps between them both.
Timo Glock: "This morning we wanted to focus on our aero program and therefore we didn't do any real set-up work, so we only used the Prime tyres, which are slower than the two soft options. I think the second session was reasonable for us. I'm not 100% happy but I think it was a good start to the weekend. I felt comfortable in the car and I'm very happy to be in Germany and racing at home in front of the fantastic German fans."
Jerome D'Ambrosio: "It was a smooth Friday, certainly in comparison to Silverstone where we were disturbed by the weather. We got some good testing done and I'm quite confident for tomorrow. I still need to fine-tune my driving to the track but I'm definitely pretty happy about today."
John Booth, Team Principal: "The morning session was spent in part going over some old ground, confirming the engine mapping direction to ensure we were getting maximum aero performance. We also experimented with some set-ups which we arrived at from the data we collected at the straight line test. There is certainly quite a significant difference between the Prime and Option tyres, particularly at the start of the run, and in fact with Timo we opted not to run the Prime tyres in the second session to get more useful set-up work. At the end of the session we've acquired even more data than we would normally achieve on a Friday to go through, which we are hopeful will yield some improvements that we can apply overnight."
To check out our Nurburgring practice gallery, click here