23 September: Brazilian Grand Prix - Friday Practice Report - McLaren Mercedes
Team McLaren Mercedes driver Alex Wurz topped the time sheets in today's two practice sessions for Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix
with times of 1:11.701 and 1:12.083. Juan Pablo Montoya set times of 1:13.256 and 1:12.694 whilst Kimi Raikkonen times were 1:13.065
and 1:13.172. Juan Pablo was seventh and second whilst Kimi ended up fifth and sixth.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA "I
didn't do an awful lot of running in the first session as the track was rather dusty but we were able to set quite good lap times, I
think. However today is not really about lap times but about finding a strong balance and set-up, and I believe we are going in the
right direction. We still have some improvements to make particularly as the balance of the car is still not 100% but our Michelin
tyres seem to be working well, and we have a pretty clear indication of our tyre choice already."
KIMI RAIKKONEN "An
OK day where we worked through our programme, so a positive start to the weekend. Obviously the track was quite dusty to start with,
so I didn't do any real running in the first session. We still have some work to do to find the perfect set-up, but I'm confident
that we will improve further during tomorrow's two practice sessions. Everybody in the team wants to leave Brazil with important
points, and we are working hard to achieve this."
ALEX WURZ "The nature of this circuit means that you
have to cope with a bumpy and extremely dusty track which makes my work quite difficult as I have to adapt to the rapid and
continuous change in conditions. Consequently tyre choice on what I would describe as being the trickiest of all circuits is
extremely challenging. However, I'm quite confident that with our car and the experience of the team we will work out the optimum
package for the qualifying and the race."
RON DENNIS "An uneventful first day of practice here at the
challenging Interlagos circuit. We obtained a lot of information and will continue our work tomorrow when track conditions hopefully
will be less dusty."
NORBERT HAUG "A positive Friday's practice where we covered a lot of mileage which
should be a good basis for qualifying and the race. Alex's long runs provided us with good data in respect of tyre comparison and
race set-up"
