Review of a rainy practice day at Spa

Heavy rain, which is not unusual in this part of the world in September, hindered preparation for this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, with virtually no teams running in this afternoon’s washed-out second free practice session. Now everyone is looking forward to Saturday's practice. But not everybody is unhappy with the bad weather at Spa-Francorchamps.

BMW Williams
Mark Webber "It was a frustrating day because we didn’t get much information at all, as we only did two timed laps in the morning session. You never know what you are going to get weather-wise here - you just cannot predict. A lot of the teams opted to do more mileage in the second session but in the end the rain was too heavy to run. We now hope we can get some good running in the morning tomorrow and get ready for qualifying and the race."

Antonio Pizzonia "It’s nice to be back in the cockpit of the FW27 in Spa, my favourite track. Unfortunately I had a small accident this morning, which didn’t cost us any laps and didn’t really affect our programme. Still, it’s not the way you would like to start a GP weekend. The mechanics did a great job to fix everything quickly. In the second session it rained heavily so we didn’t go out on track but it was the same for most of the teams. This means we have a few extra laps to do tomorrow and we just have to try to get the most out of it."

Sam Michael, Williams Technical Director "It was a day of mixed weather, which is normal for Spa. This morning we got some limited running on a slightly damp track in order to check ride height, tyre pressures and top speed. In the second session it was too wet to run. Due to the fact in both the sessions the track was wet, the dry tyre compound choice is delayed to Saturday at 12 o’clock."

Mario Theissen, BMW Motorsport Director "This afternoon’s heavy rain might help the prosperous nature in Spa but in these conditions it is impossible to drive an F1 car properly. It is a shame for the spectators, but it is force majeure. Now it’s important to make the most out of tomorrow’s practice sessions in order to get the set-up right."

Jordan
Tiago Monteiro “It is quite difficult to describe how the car was feeling considering the small number of laps we have completed today. This morning we just checked if the car was ok and wanted to do our complete normal Friday programme but the track conditions did not allow us to do this. The tyre choice for the rest of the weekend will therefore not be an easy one. However, I am pretty confident we will make a good choice.”

Narain Karthikeyan “This morning I was running the EJ15B car for the first time during a Grand Prix weekend and it was problem free. I did a good job but the circuit conditions were constantly changing. I cannot say much about the afternoon, except that a boat would have been better than an F1 car.”

Nicolas Kiesa “It was quite difficult this morning as I was one of the first to go out in half dry, half wet conditions and also because I have not driven here for three years. I had therefore to get used to the circuit and its difficult conditions.
But all in all, we had a pretty good practice and I have to say that from the start, the car felt very good. The best thing about the car was even though the circuit was getting dryer and dryer, its behaviour did not change. It was very nice and I felt confident to push it harder. We have managed to test some tyres and we have a half-decent evaluation. If I was a race driver, I would have a 85% idea of which tyres we should use and this despite the fact we did not run in the second practice.”

Adrian Burgess, Sporting Director “Everything went ok this morning but we could not do a lot of work because of the weather conditions. We did our tyre blanket comparison this afternoon and all the tyre blankets worked perfectly well. We will wait until tomorrow to see what the weather brings.”

Ferrari
Michael Schumacher “This morning we did not look that competitive, but this afternoon we never got the chance to find out the real situation in terms of how we compare with the others. It was just too wet to go out. I think we would have needed a boat propeller to power our way round the track! The forecast is for more rain and if that is the case on Sunday, I can see us having to start the race behind the Safety Car. Maybe our Tifosi have done too good a job with their rain dance!”

Rubens Barrichello “Even though I like driving in the wet, this afternoon there was just too much water on track and it was impossible to drive a Formula 1 car in these conditions. I hope it will not rain as much over the next two days…”

Ross Brawn “We only had one short run in the dry this morning with each of our drivers, when our car seemed reasonably well balanced, apart from a bit too much understeer. We made adjustments to deal with this, but of course we have not been able to check them to see if they have worked or not. Apparently, this mixed weather is what we can expect for the rest of the weekend, so hopefully we will have an opportunity to see how good the Ferrari-Bridgestone package is in the wet.”

Jean Todt “Rain was the main story of the day, making it impossible for this afternoon’s free practice to run in the normal way. In the first hour, our two drivers did just one run each when the track was still damp. Therefore it is difficult to know what is the true situation. According to the weather forecast, the next two days could be similar to this afternoon. We will have to wait and see just when the rain will fall and how heavily. It has been a very long time since we have seen a race in the rain. In the past, the Ferrari- Bridgestone package was very competitive on a wet track. Naturally, we hope that is still the case.”

Toyota
Jarno Trulli "We were expecting this to be a wet weekend, and the weather forecast is still bad so it's likely to be a tough weekend because we haven't done much wet testing this year. Spa is the best circuit in the world, and the most fun to drive, but the intensity of the rain can vary hugely so that can have a big impact on circuit conditions. Still, it will be the same for everyone. Last year I took pole in the wet here so we'll be hoping for a positive result."

Ralf Schumacher "Unfortunately weather like that means that this will be a hard weekend for all the teams. Obviously it makes it very difficult to pick which dry tyre to run – if we ever get a chance to run on dries this weekend. It makes tomorrow busier, too. We'll have to go out in the wet eventually. There have been no wet races yet this year and at Toyota we haven't done much testing in the wet either. So we'll have to wait and see how it works out."

Ricardo Zonta "It's a pity we missed out on this afternoon's session because Spa is always a fun place to drive. But this morning the circuit started out damp, so we had a chance to try out the shallow wets. The balance changes when you switch to dry tyres so at least we are able to learn something about that in case we need to use it in the race. Spa is always a good fun place to drive in any conditions and today gave us a typical mixture of weather."

Mike Gascoyne, Technical Director Chassis "That was a reasonably typical Spa wet day with difficult conditions which would have been dangerous to run in. Our weather forecast predicted that it would be wet for the afternoon so we did a reasonable amount of running in the first session. Ricardo was able to run both on shallow wets and dry tyres and conduct some evaluations, while both race drivers also had a run in the dry so at least we have some information for the tyre choice tonight."

BAR Honda
Jenson Button "We've been here many times before so today's weather is hardly surprising. The only good thing is that everyone is in the same boat. We'll obviously do what work we can with the little data we gathered this morning and then start tomorrow with better conditions I hope."

Takuma Sato "There is little to say about today because of the weather. I did only a few laps at the end of the morning session in drying conditions, but my first impression is that our package should be quite good. We will just have two very busy sessions tomorrow."

Gill de Ferran, Sporting Director "Obviously it was far too wet for any of the drivers to venture out on track this afternoon. Tomorrow morning will be a challenge as we try to compress the work from all four practice sessions into one and a half hours before making our dry tyre choice at mid-day. The weather forecast for tomorrow is for more of the same conditions, so things could get very interesting here this weekend!"

Shuhei Nakamoto, HRD Engineering Director "The upgraded engine worked fine in the few laps we completed. As usual in Spa, we need to be ready for all kinds of weather conditions!"