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cmlean wrote:

Julian Mayo wrote:

Ed wrote:The Renaults have the highest top speed with 301.

Imagine how fast these things would be if they had to rely on mechanical grip
Old "Therapy" is only a tad slower in a straight line, with the dawgs on board...n a tail wind

The dawgs have to keep their mouths shut. Too much drag for Therapy.

cmlean wrote:Therapy's version of a gas turbine.

cmlean wrote:I think it was the $2 part. It's just about the right size to stop up the exhaust.

jacfan wrote:I think you might be on to something big there.

It was not so bad. We have done a lot of tyre testing because the track is very green and there is no grip, so the tyres are suffering a lot. We did long runs, it was quite hot, and now we have to see how our tyre choice will work tomorrow. Anyway everything is under control and the new aero features on the car seem to work well.

It was a normal Friday for me here today, working on the tyre programme and making a few small set-up changes. I think we have a good picture of the directions we need to take tomorrow, both in terms of the Michelin tyres and the car set-up. The new C-spec engine feels like a good step and has performed without any problems so far, which is encouraging. Magny-Cours is a circuit I always enjoy, because the two high-speed chicanes that give it something unique for the drivers, and even today we could see plenty of our fans and colleagues from Renault in the grandstands. There will be even more tomorrow and Sunday, and I hope our performance will live up to their expectations. So far, so good!

A good day's work today. It was a typical Friday schedule really, making the decision on the tyres for the weekend. I felt the choice was fairly straightforward today and we will have a good balance for the race if it is in similar conditions. I'm confident that the tyres will hold up and produce good lap times during the long runs. The second session was hotter this afternoon and track conditions were a little bit worse, with the wind getting up also, so everyone struggled for lap times compared to this morning.

We had an interesting day regarding our tyre choice today. We can go both ways, so I am very curious about what we will decide tonight. We will now run through the data and hook up with Mark and Nico and see what they think about the performance of each tyre. It?s a shame that when I went out on my last set of tyres I was caught up in heavy traffic because I could have just sneaked around Kubica. It?s hot out there and the race is going to be physical. I would love to be in the car on Sunday but I am going to watch it from a cool, air-conditioned room instead!

This was another good start to the race weekend for me, which is encouraging after my strong performance in Indianapolis. I started out the session with a bit too much oversteer so we had to make some changes to the car, but we calmed it down and it began to feel easy to drive and consistent. We still have some room for improvement tomorrow, but I am happy with the situation so far and I think we have got some good ideas for what we need to do in the race. This was a promising start for me.

The situation looks pretty good. We are reasonably satisfied with what we have seen this afternoon. However, now we must take a close look at the data to try and understand where we stand compared to the others. We are well aware that tyres will be vital in deciding the final outcome. Our Bridgestones seem to be consistent over a long run, but at
the moment we cannot say how they will really perform over a single lap. We, and you, will have to wait until tomorrow to find out!

The temperatures were quite high in the cockpit this afternoon, which made it physically demanding to drive so many laps, but I'm happy with the work we did today. I think we've found the right tyres, but we still have to see which one will be best over a race distance. But overall, it was a good day for me. I was able to push the car closer and closer to the limit - even harder than I drove it at Nurburgring. I expected the car to be quicker than the last time, given the improvements the team has made, and it was definitely much better to drive. It's always nice to be classified in the top 10, so I'm very satisfied with my P5 and P7 today. Now, I'm really looking forward to my next opportunity to drive for the team again.

Everyone says this circuit is in the middle of nowhere, but it?s definitely fun to drive. It has really high-speed corners, so it?s really
important to have a right set up and we?ve been concentrating on that. We were a bit lost in the morning?s practice, but we?re getting there now.
It?s all about the tyres this weekend and reading how they?re going to react in the hot conditions, so that?s the focus.

This afternoon I was going quite well with the tyres on my first run but I seemed to have some oversteer. Going into turn four, I got a little bit of the right kerb, the car touched the ground and I spun into the wall, which ended my afternoon. Even in the short time that I was on track, the car was nice to drive and it feels competitive, so we will look at the data from Anthony and Jenson this evening and work to find the right set-up for the weekend based on that.

The car is not too bad here and I think we can be quite competitive. In terms of set-up and tyres it's not looking too bad either. The accident was my mistake. Earlier I had been using the right hand kerb at Turn 7 and was getting away with it. Then I tried to use it a little bit more and it turned around and bit me! It launched the rear in the air and I immediately lost control of the car.

A normal Friday's programme which unfortunately ended with a small electrical problem on my very last lap. This didn't hamper our progress today where we focused on Michelin tyre evaluation and set-up work.

The first practice day was without any problems. Robert completed 64 laps and, as usual, did the biggest part of the work for set up and tyre choice. Now we will evaluate all the data we have collected from this.

From the engineers' point of view, this was a normal day of Friday practice spent evaluating tyre compounds and tuning the handling of the cars. After some work during the second session, the R26 now seems to have a reasonably consistent balance for both drivers, and the times certainly seem competitive. We ran both types of Michelin tyre today, and the first impressions are that we are back on track after the anomaly of our performance in Indianapolis.

Despite the fact that we didn't get all the running we had planned today due to Rubens' incident, we did get enough data to be able to make informed decisions as far as the tyres and the car set-up are concerned. A good start to the weekend for us although we need to continue to improve the car balance to remain competitive during the rest of the weekend.

We?ve had a productive day today. We experienced a problem with a drive shaft on Alex?s car during this morning?s practice and the mechanics did well to fix it quickly and get him back out on track at the end of the session. It was then a standard afternoon for him, evaluating tyre compounds. Bridgestone have brought two good tyres here so we?ll go through the data carefully to make our selection. Everything else went according to plan, specifically checks on the cooling system and the brakes, which is crucial considering how hot it is here and that we?re expecting similar conditions all weekend. All the new parts are working well, so tonight we?ll work on our set-up options to get some more pace out of the car for qualifying tomorrow.

This Friday?s main feature was the rather high temperatures, which means we can assume we will have a very hot weekend. As usual, we worked through our standard free practice plan, revolving mainly around defining the best set-up for the 248 F1 and evaluating the Bridgestone tyres. And also as usual, it is too soon to have a clear picture of where we stand against our main rivals, especially as we don?t know what fuel loads they were running nor how the track conditions will evolve. Tomorrow, we can expect to see a first real pointer.

All the cars proved good and reliable today, and the drivers did an excellent job. We had to do our homework with the tyres, because the track changed over the course of the afternoon and the temperatures rose quite a bit. So the grip was rather difficult to predict, and quite difficult to deal with. Bridgestone brought a couple of tyres here that are a genuine compromise between race and qualifying, so we have to think carefully about which way to go. Adrian did an extremely good job today to provide us with some useful data, while Christijan and Tiago worked very hard to set up the cars with the new suspension, which made the balance of the car quite different. We're still working it out, but it seems to be heading in the right direction at the moment.

We had a very positive day today and we made it through our entire programme without any issues. We got our long runs done and collected lots of data so we are in a position to make a confident choice about the tyres. We also went through all the set-up options that we had planned and both drivers were happy with the balance so we are satisfied with what we have achieved. Ralf has an update on his engine here while Jarno is still using his engine from Indianapolis because he is on the second race of his cycle. We also have updates to the aerodynamics and the suspension. Our performance looks promising so we will use that as a baseline for the rest of the weekend.

With the exception of a small electrical fault on Kimi's car in the closing seconds of practice the day was uneventful with us focusing on tyre durability with Michelin.

It was a reasonably good Friday for us. Sakon suffered a problem this morning, but we rectified it and in the afternoon we were able to continue with our Bridgestone tyre comparisons, which we are relatively happy with. Taku seems quite happy with the set-up of his car, but I think that Franck may not be so happy after being held up in traffic on his quick lap. That said we've managed to complete almost our entire planned programme, so it has not been a bad day.