European GP Practice

Posted on Friday 21 Aug 2009 and tagged with europe, valencia.

Objectives P1
•    Analysis of new mechanical components
•    Mechanical set-up work

Objectives P2
•    Performance evaluations with low and high fuel loads
•    Tyre comparisons

Conclusions – Rod Nelson, Chief Operations Engineer
“As Valencia is a street circuit we found that the grip level increased throughout the sessions, particularly in the second session when people started running the new tyres. As usual on a Friday, we concentrated on a combination of car set-up work and also some homework for the race with some long runs on both types of tyre. The circuit was in fairly good condition at the end of the session and the weather looks like it will remain pretty hot and humid all weekend.”

Nico Rosberg
Runs P1: 1 install (new prime), 6 (scrubbed prime), 4 (scrubbed prime), 5 (scrubbed prime)
Runs P2: 2 (scrubbed prime), 11 (new prime), 11 (new option), 4 (new option), 3 (scrubbed option)
“I had a difficult start in the morning because the tyres grained straightaway. I was then left with a grained set for the remainder of the session which meant I didn’t learn much at all. The afternoon was much better as we managed a good tyre test so we now have much more information for Sunday. We also made some positive set-up changes and have a good handle on which way to go with the car. In general, it was ok today. Performance-wise, we are not quite where we want to be so we have some further analysis to do ahead of tomorrow, but that should help us improve. We will wait and see.”

Kazuki Nakajima
Runs P1: 1 install (new prime), 7 (scrubbed prime), 6 (scrubbed prime), 5 (scrubbed prime)
Runs P2: 3 (scrubbed prime), 9 (new option), 9 (new prime), 3 (new option), 1 (scrubbed option)
“I think it was a good day for us. We seem to have good long run pace and, even on the new tyres, our times were decent on the short runs as well. The track was fairly green at the start of the day, but improved throughout the two sessions and will continue to do so for tomorrow’s qualifying, which I’m really looking forward to.”