Friday, March 31, 2006
# posted by Rich @ 11:24 PM
Australia Friday practice 2: report
Firday practice 2 is starting to get a little familiar, if you know what I mean. Again, there were few surprises - the Friday drivers were quickest, and Davidson was the quickest of them, with a time of 1:26.822 (despite being baulked by Speed at one point - I'm warning you Speed. Olivier Grouillard award...). Wurz, however, was only a hundredth slower. Kubica was third fastest. Thefastest of the regular drivers was Jenson Button, who was 2 tenths faster than Alonso. M Schumacher was the next fastest driver, and the rest of the topten was filled by Raikkonen, Barrichello, Montoya, and Massa. Fisichella was 11th fastest.
Conditions were tricky, as evidenced by the fact that numerous people had minor offs and spins. Amongst the people who had little offs were Coulthard, Schumacher, Liuzzi, Webber and Kubica. Indeed, the most offtrack incidents seemed to occur at the fast turn 12 kink. It was here that Ide had a near perfect 360 - one of many offs the Japanese rookie had. It was also here that Liuzzi had a lurid slide and backed it into the wall, damaging the rear wing of his Toro Rosso.
Towards the end of the session, Albers spun out at turn 15 (the penultimate corner), bringing out waved yellows. The radio conversation with the team was quite funny, and went along the lines of "Christian, did you hit anything?"; "Yeah, I hit something - the wall". The large number of offs can be attributed to the fact that the track was "green" and dusty, but Steve Matchett also reckons that the cars were being run too stiffly sprung, and it was causing them to be unstable over the bumps.
One thing I though was interesting was that the final corner seems to be more flat out than in previous years (although this could be my imagination). One possibility is that, with the V8 engines, it is possible to drive harder around that particular corner, and therefore it is more flat.
There were also some interesting things from the commentary team, especially on the issue of engines. Steve Matchett explained that the problem that Ferrari have been having is apparently random inasmuchas they have been able to reproduce the problem, but it is never the same cylinder and never the same piston, and thus has been tough to track down. Also, he pointed out that Cosworth's problem with Rosberg's engine was a con rod cap, and they now have the problem solved.
Bob Varsha made a stupid comment - he claimed that "like the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the Albert Park circuit is a normal roadway for most of the year. Hmm, that's not really true of the Gille Villeneuve circuit actually. Back me up on this one Neil!
One funny comment from the team was to do with Ide and the onboard shots, of which there were a lot - if you go onboard with Ide you can be pretty sure it is not for anything good.
Anyway, Saturday practice is due to start, and qualifying will be on later today. Rain has been predicted for sometime today, so it will be really interesting to see what happens in qualifying.
Conditions were tricky, as evidenced by the fact that numerous people had minor offs and spins. Amongst the people who had little offs were Coulthard, Schumacher, Liuzzi, Webber and Kubica. Indeed, the most offtrack incidents seemed to occur at the fast turn 12 kink. It was here that Ide had a near perfect 360 - one of many offs the Japanese rookie had. It was also here that Liuzzi had a lurid slide and backed it into the wall, damaging the rear wing of his Toro Rosso.
Towards the end of the session, Albers spun out at turn 15 (the penultimate corner), bringing out waved yellows. The radio conversation with the team was quite funny, and went along the lines of "Christian, did you hit anything?"; "Yeah, I hit something - the wall". The large number of offs can be attributed to the fact that the track was "green" and dusty, but Steve Matchett also reckons that the cars were being run too stiffly sprung, and it was causing them to be unstable over the bumps.
One thing I though was interesting was that the final corner seems to be more flat out than in previous years (although this could be my imagination). One possibility is that, with the V8 engines, it is possible to drive harder around that particular corner, and therefore it is more flat.
There were also some interesting things from the commentary team, especially on the issue of engines. Steve Matchett explained that the problem that Ferrari have been having is apparently random inasmuchas they have been able to reproduce the problem, but it is never the same cylinder and never the same piston, and thus has been tough to track down. Also, he pointed out that Cosworth's problem with Rosberg's engine was a con rod cap, and they now have the problem solved.
Bob Varsha made a stupid comment - he claimed that "like the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the Albert Park circuit is a normal roadway for most of the year. Hmm, that's not really true of the Gille Villeneuve circuit actually. Back me up on this one Neil!
One funny comment from the team was to do with Ide and the onboard shots, of which there were a lot - if you go onboard with Ide you can be pretty sure it is not for anything good.
Anyway, Saturday practice is due to start, and qualifying will be on later today. Rain has been predicted for sometime today, so it will be really interesting to see what happens in qualifying.
Labels: Australia, Formula 1, Grand Prix
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