Good day for Ferrari at Nürburgring

The Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro has had a very good day at the Nürburgring today. Michael Schumacher was in the top five of both free practice sessions and the German hopes to win in front of his home crowd this weekend.

Jean Todt "At the risk of sounding repetitive, I have to say this was just the usual Friday during which the team worked on the comparison of the two types of tyre brought here by Bridgestone and on defining the best settings on the car for the race. We acquired some interesting data, which will now be evaluated by the engineers to make all the necessary choices for the rest of the Grand Prix. From what we have seen so far, we can say that our chassis, engine and Bridgestone tyre package, should allow us to be competitive."

Michael Schumacher "We had a good day and I am reasonably happy with the car. We are more or less where we expected to be. Looking at the times, the situation seems quite good. I opted for just one type of tyre for this first day of free practice, working only on this and the choice seemed to be the best one. Our main rivals also seem very strong, so I think it will be a very close fight. We are confident and from what we have seen, we are also competitive here. If we can put all the pieces of the jigsaw together then we can fight for the win."

Felipe Massa "As usual, today was spent mainly comparing the two types of tyre Bridgestone has brought here for us and on finding the best set-up on the 248 F1. Michael and I split the work load, each trying a different type of tyre. Overall, I am reasonably happy with the way things went this afternoon and we now have a lot of data to study. We know we have a good potential and we have to try and improve the car for qualifying and most of all, for the race."

Ross Brawn "Getting the car balanced was a bit tricky at first, but I think both race engineers did a good job with their drivers to improve the situation, to the extent that, come the end of the second hour, both Michael and Felipe were happy. The two drivers used different tyre types so as to get as much data as possible to work with from this afternoon onwards. Basically, the cars seem to be competitive and we are confident for the rest of the weekend."