9 September: Belgian Grand Prix - Friday Practice Report - McLaren Mercedes
Team McLaren Mercedes driver Kimi Raikkonen emerged fastest from today's two practice sessions at the Spa circuit with a time of
1:48.206 with Alex second with a time of 1:48.216. The first session took place in drying conditions whilst rain started falling
just before the second session. Juan Pablo didn't do any running in the first session as the team decided to make a precautionary
engine change. However as Juan Pablo's engine was new for this weekend and he had done no running, the team will incur no penalty
for this change.
KIMI RAIKKONEN "I did one run at the end of the first session, but the conditions on the
drying track were not ideal. However the car felt good straight away, and we will just have to wait and see what the weather does
tomorrow. I like Spa and this is an important weekend me and the team, and we will just continue to focus on winning the race �
whether it's wet or dry."
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA "I didn't get the chance to run in the dry today when I had
to sit out the first practice as the team had to do a precautionary engine change on my car. The second session was obviously very
wet from the beginning so it was no use doing any running. At least Alex got a decent amount of laps done in the first session so we
will really have to rely on his feedback. I look forward to tomorrow when the weather hopefully will be dry, but as this is Spa you
never know."
ALEX WURZ "I did two runs in the first session this morning when the track was drying. It was
still slippery at certain parts and you really had to concentrate driving on the limit in these conditions, but basically the car
felt good. Still we have to continue our dry Michelin tyre evaluation tomorrow as we couldn't gain enough data today, but we made
some progress."
RON DENNIS "Whilst we had limited running in the first session it was enough to confirm
our continued competitiveness. Clearly running in the extreme conditions that we experienced this afternoon would not have been
wise. I'm sure this will be a weekend where the accuracy of our weather forecasting will play a significant role in the outcome of
the race."
NORBERT HAUG "Alex had a difficult task working on the race set-up as the track never really
got dry during the first session. That was the reason for Kimi only doing one run on the drying track, which nevertheless saw him
emerge fastest from the first session. We had to change Juan Pablo's engine in the morning as a precautionary step to eliminate a
suspected problem with the camshaft surface treatment."
