Marussia Spanish GP Friday report

READY STEADY

Free Practice 1 & 2 for the Spanish Grand Prix
Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
11 May 2012

The Marussia F1 Team spent an industrious day on track at the Circuit de Catalunya today, steadily working their way through a busy programme of aerodynamic evaluations and set-up work with Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix in their sights.

Charles Pic, Marussia F1 Team

Photo by: xpb.cc

In hot and sunny conditions, the day began with Timo Glock and Charles Pic working to distinct run plans in order to determine a good direction forward. Between them they completed plenty of laps and aside from the requirement to improve the balance, the morning session ran smoothly.

In the lunch break they pooled the data in order to commence work on qualifying set-up at the start of FP2 and then later in the afternoon, some long run work to evaluate the tyre degradation level for the race.

Timo Glock #24

“To be honest we’ve had two pretty difficult sessions today as we’ve struggled with the balance of the car. It’s been very nervous on both sets of tyres so a little disappointing that we seem to still have this problem. We’ll just have to take a good look at the data and see what we can find to improve the situation for tomorrow.”

Charles Pic #25

“I am quite happy with the way today has been. We made good progress across the two sessions and I feel the benefit of the new update. I think there is more we can find overnight to prepare us for qualifying, but generally it feels like we can have a good rest of the weekend. A good start I think.”

John Booth, Team Principal

“We always said that whilst we were pleased with our test in Mugello, a better barometer of how much our updates would improve our car’s performance would be once we got to a more representative circuit such as this one. We don’t feel that we have made the best start today and there is a slight air of disappointment as a result, however we must stay focused as it will only be after qualifying tomorrow that we will be able to make a full assessment of our the step. Overall we can be pleased that the reliability of the car has been good and allowed us to complete our set-up and aero programmes today. The results of our aerodynamic tests in FP1 can now be applied across both cars for FP3 tomorrow. Neither driver is 100% happy with the balance so far,

however I’m sure that time spent looking at the data tonight will allow for improved set-ups in the morning.”