09/09/2011
NEWS STORY
The Sauber F1 Team with its drivers, Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi, enjoyed a very productive first day of free practice at the high-speed circuit of Monza. With very stable weather conditions during the course of the day they did 67 and 66 laps respectively, and came eighth and ninth in the afternoon session. Both drivers familiarised themselves with driving the Sauber C30-Ferrari with a low downforce level, evaluated the two Pirelli tyre compounds (medium and soft) and worked on the race set-up for the Italian Grand Prix. On his very last lap in the second free practice Kobayashi stopped on track due to a transmission problem.
Sergio Perez: "For me this was a very positive day. Actually it was better than I expected, which is good news. When I was on new soft tyres the track was a bit dirty, so this makes me hope I can improve in qualifying. My car feels well balanced, especially with the soft tyres, and also on long runs."
Kamui Kobayashi: "Having stable weather and track conditions was very useful today, and enabled us to do proper set-up work in both sessions. For me the car isn't perfect yet, but I can see that we have the potential to improve the balance and the lap time. I'm looking forward to tomorrow."
Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Head of Track Engineering: "In the first practice session it was important to us to let the drivers do a good mileage on the medium compound tyres so they can get used to the low downforce level. Of course in the morning we also did the usual systems checks, and started to work on the cars' set-up. For the second 90 minutes session we obviously had the tyre comparison on the list. Again we did a lot of mileage, and we now feel well prepared for the race. Apart from Kamui having to stop on track with a transmission problem at the end, everything went smoothly today."