Trulli struggling with inconsistent balance
It was a very busy day for the Toyota F1 team and its drivers Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli. Both drivers tried to get the know the track as good as possible. Glock succeeded in this attempt and this without any technical difficulties as team mate Trulli is struggling with an inconsistent balance.
Timo Glock (Car 12, Chassis TF108-06)
Summary: Two strong practice sessions, ending with the 7th quickest time of the afternoon
P1 14th Best Lap Time: 1m 42.036s (+1.540s) Laps: 27
P2 7th Best Lap Time: 1m 39.967s (+0.490s) Laps: 32
"It's always enjoyable to come to a new venue and I'm impressed. It was pretty hot out there but the track is good fun and the layout is interesting. I like street circuits because I raced on so many of them during my time racing Champ Car in America but apart from the harbour and the buildings this doesn't really look like a street circuit because it has long straights. We had a good day. The first practice was a bit difficult and the track was very dusty but we expected that. The afternoon was much better and the car got more and more into the set-up window. I hope we can keep going in this direction because it has been a productive day."
Jarno Trulli (Car 11, Chassis TF108-05)
Summary: A busy day of practice, running without problems but struggling to find the best balance
P1 12th Best Lap Time: 1m 41.930s (+1.434s) Laps: 27
P2 15th Best Lap Time: 1m 40.877s (+1.400s) Laps: 32
"That was not a particularly good day for me. We need to adjust the car balance so we will have to look into it tonight. The track is good, though, and I like it. In karting we used to race on a lot of street circuits so learning it doesn't take long. But you need to find a compromise on set-up because there is a mix of slow corners and higher-speed sections with long straights. The most important thing is how much the surface will change during the weekend. The asphalt is quite smooth and while it was predictably slippery today, the grip should improve so it will be hard to get the set-up right."
Dieter Gass, Chief Engineer Race and Test: "The most important thing when you go to a new track is to make it through your programme without any technical problems, which was the case today. On the first day at a new track we amend our usual plan. Today we carried out more long runs both at the start of P1 to learn the circuit and at the end of P2 to help judge the tyre behaviour because we have no reference here. Apart from that you aim to find the balance and the right downforce levels. There doesn't seem to be a lot of grip around and it didn't improve as massively as we would have expected. Still, we're quite happy with where we are with Timo but Jarno is struggling a bit with an inconsistent balance. So we will have to look into that and fix it for tomorrow."
