14/10/2011
NEWS STORY
Vitaly and Bruno experienced a day of two halves at the Korean International Circuit with a morning practice session too wet for meaningful running, resulting in lots of running in the drier afternoon session.
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: The morning was a bit of a washout. We opted not to run because looking at our forecasts, Saturday and Sunday should be dry, meaning we don't want to risk our cars in conditions which required wet tyres. We ran wet tyres for installation laps only in FP1.
We ran intermediate tyres in FP2. Our weather forecasts tell us it will be dry and overcast tomorrow shifting to sunny, warm weather on Sunday.
We gained some meaningful data in FP2 which will assist us with dry setup tomorrow. We have progress to be made with the aerodynamic compromise of the car between the high and lower speed sections of the circuit. The R31 is working well so far and we are looking at improving the balance. We are seeking improvements in traction and hope to diminish mid-corner understeer for tomorrow.
Bruno Senna: "There's not much to say about this morning other than it's frustrating for all drivers when you can't go out to set a lap time. This afternoon, it was beneficial to get some track time though we did endure some difficulties with the balance of the car. Hopefully we will be able to rectify this, but we need to look at where we can improve the aerodynamics otherwise we will encounter more difficulties this weekend. Fingers crossed tomorrow that we will be able to run in the dry, so that we can become accustomed to the conditions that we expect to face on Sunday."
Vitaly Petrov: "All of the day was wet. Our car struggles a little bit in these conditions as we still have to find the best aero setup so we spent quite a lot of time in the afternoon to try to find the right setup. We did a lot of running in the afternoon which will help us to improve tomorrow so I am quite optimistic. We also completed a couple of installation laps on the wet tyres to give an idea of the grip levels available from that compound. At the moment the car is working normally. Tomorrow is another day; hopefully it will be a dry day."
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