Mechanical failure for Ide

Super Aguri Formula 1 commenced its inaugural Grand Prix weekend at the Bahrain International Circuit today. In a race against time to complete all that needed to be achieved before running today the team experienced relatively few problems during its initial day, however a mechanical failure ended Yuji Ide's running only minutes before the end of the second free practice session.

Takuma Sato "It was a busy day being the first time the team has run in a race-weekend situation. Obviously we were limited because of the amount of work we have to do today, but we have been able to collect very valuable data as this is really the first time that we have run the SA05 with our 2006 aero package. So this is a good step for our first day and there is a lot of work to do regarding our performance, but we shall work hard over night to ensure another good day tomorrow."

Yuji Ide "I am always happy to be in the car but today was a very special day for me. We had a little mechanical problem but I am glad that I was able to test the new tyres during my running time. I think that we had a good practice session. It was a good testing for me. I am looking forward to driving tomorrow and will do my best to learn more about the track when I am in the car again tomorrow."

Aguri Suzuki, Team Principal "We couldn't test the car much at the testing so the first practice session was like a shake-down for us. It was great to see the car actually running on the track. The second session was to check if the car runs properly and make some changes from the first session. Although we had mechanical problem today but I am happy with what we did and am looking forward to tomorrow very much. "