29/07/2011
NEWS STORY
Vitantonio Liuzzi and Daniel Ricciardo finished in 23th and 24th places respectively after today's first free practice sessions for the Eni Hungarian Grand Prix, the 850th world championship event taking place in Hungary this weekend. During the two free practice sessions Liuzzi and Ricciardo covered 101 laps.
Vitantonio Liuzzi: "In the morning I was very happy with the car, which was responding really well. We had good pace and understood a few things about the setup. Then we changed a few things for the afternoon but it didn't work, so we put everything back to how it was. However the car wasn't reacting like in the morning. We had some problems with the rear end which caused over steering. Now we have to understand why this occurred and work hard to try and get things right for tomorrow".
Daniel Ricciardo: "It was ok this morning, I was just feeling my way into it. There was a bit to learn for myself but also the car was not to my liking so it was a combination of me getting into it and finding a good balance between the car and myself. We went a step closer this afternoon with that but not enough. We can improve with the prime tyre. As for the option, it was my first time on super-softs and I liked the amount of grip you get from them. The balance is a bit closer to what we need but we still have some work to do with the primes, we'll try and solve it for tomorrow".
Colin Kolles, Team Principal: "HRT F1 made good progress in the two ninety minutes free practice sessions. Neither Vitantonio Liuzzi nor Daniel Ricciardo encountered any problems in the first session and could continue to work through the team program in the second session. The track was dirty this morning, so the team decided to experiment and try a few things, with the intention of doing more intensive set-up work when the track had cleaned up this afternoon. The weather forecast looked unstable for the afternoon, so by precaution the team tested some components in the morning that they would normally test in the afternoon".
To check out our Hungary practice gallery, click here.