F1: Malaysian GP - Friday Practice Quotes

[Rory Phoulorie]

Felipe Massa headed a list of Ferrari, Renault and Williams drivers occupying the top six in Malaysian practice.

Ferrari
Kimi Raikkonen: still to be released

Felipe Massa: still to be released


Renault
Giancarlo Fisichella: "It was a pretty normal Friday for me, and we managed to do a lot more running than in Australia, which is a good start. The balance of the car is not too bad, but we are lacking grip, and that marks the car nervous and inconsistent to drive. Of course, the hot conditions always mean grip levels are lower, but we made some decent progress today - and hopefully that can continue tomorrow. Physically, it was tough out there today, especially as I have been suffering from the flu in the past couple of day. But by Sunday, I am confident everything will be OK."

Heikki Kovalainen: "It was a really good Friday for me, especially compared to the first day of practice in Australia. After the test last week, it was good to complete another 60 laps today and get in tune with the circuit again. In terms of the car's handling, it was quite like the final day of the test: the balance wasn't too bad, and improved in line with the circuit conditions, just as it will have done for all the drivers. The heat makes life tough here, and it is going to be a long, hard race but I feel well prepared after the test. In terms of competitiveness, we don't really know where we stand at the moment, as we can't know what the other teams were doing. But the picture will become clearer tomorrow."


Williams:
Nico Rosberg: "We have found a couple of reasonable set-ups over the two sessions today, but it's hard to say where we really are at the moment. We will know a little bit more by tomorrow after the last free practice session."

Alex Wurz: "I only drove in the afternoon today and the car felt very different from how it was in last week's test, so we had to do a lot of work in the session to find the performance we had last week. We are still not completely satisfied, but we have practice tomorrow to improve upon where we are."


BMW, Toyota and McLaren all succeeded in bringing one driver home in the top nine in Malaysian practice.

BMW
Robert Kubica: "We have had many problems today. Some we were able to fix in second free practice, but there is still some more work to do to fix the rest."

Nick Heidfeld: "I am not happy with my car yet. Especially at the beginning of the session the balance was not good at all, and the car was difficult to drive. Although later we made a step in the right direction, there is still a lot of work to do."


Toyota:
Ralf Schumacher: "That was a reasonable day and good preparation for the rest of the weekend. It's obviously hot here and the conditions push the drivers to the limit. But I like the heat and last week's testing was a good preparation for the weekend. Despite so many cars running here, the circuit was still very low on grip today. Still, we made it through our programme of work with no problems. We are comfortable with the track and the tyres were also working well. It's difficult to judge true performance after the first race but our goal is to get two cars into the top ten again and hopefully to take more points."

Jarno Trulli: "Since the beginning of the day I've been struggling so we will have to look into that tonight. The track was short of grip early on and I found myself sliding with all four wheels. The car has been inconsistent and it has not responded to the set-up changes we've made. And while the track improved I actually got worse with the same set-up. So something strange is happening and now we need to investigate why. Still, I like this track and I have always performed pretty well here. The weather is changeable and our forecasts say we may yet see some thunderstorms during the weekend."


McLaren
Fernando Alonso: "The team tested here last week when most of the set-up was done so we had a good basis for today's practice. There is now some more data added to the file which we will look at overnight, but everything went as expected. I spent some time just getting used to Sepang again as I wasn't testing last week, but there were no surprises, and I really enjoy this track."

Lewis Hamilton: "This is my first Malaysian Grand Prix, but I got to know the circuit well during last week's test. The heat and humidity are as I expected and have trained for. The practice today was pretty straight forward, and we made further steps. The circuit conditions are constantly changing which makes it challenging to find the right balance. I'm looking forward to qualifying tomorrow."


While it was a mediocre day for Red Bull and Honda, Aguri impressed in Malaysian practice with a P14.

Red Bull
Mark Webber: "We did our programme as planned this morning, but had a few running problems in the afternoon, which didn't really help too much, But, we got through most of the programme. It would have been nice to do a bit more running this afternoon, but that's the way it goes. I'm not sure what the problem was that we had at the end of the second session."

David Coulthard: "There was an issue with brake pedal clearance in the steering column of my car this afternoon, which meant we had to make some modifications during the session. For some reason it was catching, so we lost a little bit of time and confidence adjusting that. Also, there were some sensor issues which affected performance a little. The track conditions seemed to be pretty much the same as when we were testing here last week."


Super Aguri:
Takuma Sato: I think it was a difficult day. Having completed a good test last week, we came back here with a positive attitude, but this morning we really struggled. Looking at the others, I thought that the track conditions weren't too bad, but we just could not get a good grip. In the afternoon we tried a slightly different approach and the car seemed to work better than in the morning, which I was happy with, but still I think we have to work a lot for tomorrow's session."

Anthony Davidson: It was a difficult day for me. I couldn't find the balance in the car all day and so hopefully we can improve on this for tomorrow. The car didn't feel anything like it did in the test here last week, so it's a bit confusing. But Taku had a good day and proved that the car still has the pace that we had in Melbourne, so it's just up to me and the engineers to work on it overnight and get a nice balance for tomorrow."


Honda:
Jenson Button: "Well, a tough day really trying to find a balance. Initially the circuit was very dusty but as the track improved through the day we were able to work on the car more. The fact remains however that we are still a long way from where we want to be."

Rubens Barrichello: "It's simply the case that we have had a very bad day. To end the day where I am is obviously extremely frustrating. We were not able to improve the braking stability issues that we have, so all I can say is that we need to look at what we have learned today and try to find a solution that can get us back to where we were during the test last week."


Toro Rosso and Spyker once again failed to do much except make up the numbers in Malaysian practice.

STR:
Scott Speed: "Track conditions seem similar to those at last week's test, so no big surprises from that point of view. I'm glad we got that opportunity to test because today I never got much proper running. First off in the morning, I had to run the T-car, because it had never been used before today and that meant the usual stuff with a new car, like sorting out the pedals and the driving position. Then I had to sort out my own race car so I only really ran properly at the end of the second session. At first sight, my prognosis for here is the same as in Melbourne, meaning we are still quite a bit off the pace."

Tonio Liuzzi: "We have found some improvements on the car in the slower sections, where the car is beginning to react quite nicely. We tried various mechanical changes that seemed to work. As we have said a few times already this year, we are still paying the price for not having tested much in the winter, but I am sure that the arrival of Giorgio Ascanelli brings us a plus and a lot of information and so I think we should be able to make a step forward quite soon."


Spyker:
Adrian Sutil: At first it was difficult as I had to learn the circuit and, with no testing data from last week, it was quite hard to find a good balance overall. But in the end we managed quite reasonable times and went better in the second practice. We fine-tuned the set-up and the performance of the car with the harder tyres and gained around a second. On the last outing I switched to the softer tyres, but unfortunately I had a yellow flag on my fastest lap and lost about three tenths. It was still a reasonable time, just 2.6secs off the pace, but I think we can improve tomorrow and leave some cars behind us."

Christijan Albers: "We found it difficult to find a good set-up and get a reasonable time, so we have to study the data tonight, both from the car and about my driving style too. Most important is to find the right balance, which we couldn't do today. It's such a shame about the puncture as I didn't get a chance to run on the softer tyre, which might have made a difference."


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