Competitive show of pace of Monteiro
Midland F1 Racing did a good job to erase the disappointment of last weekend's race in Canada with a competitive show of pace during the second free practice session at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this afternoon.
Test driver Giorgio Mondini put all of his sets of tyres to good use today, and over the course of 33 laps recorded a scorching best lap time of 1.13.327, only 1.3 seconds off the pace and good enough for 5th position on the timesheet - MF1 Racing's best-ever result.
Tiago Monteiro was able to record an impressive 1.13.387, placing him 7th and marking the first time that two MF1 drivers have placed in the top 10 in any practice session.
Christijan Albers encountered some unfortunate delays in traffic, holding him back in 21st position, but is optimistic he will be closer to the pace in tomorrow's qualifying session.
Tiago Monteiro "It looks very good on the timesheet, doesn’t it? We ran through our normal Friday programme, working calmly, without too much pressure and not worrying about the times. We worked in the direction we wanted, and when we found the set-up we wanted, we switched to new tyres, which can go either way – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This time, the balance was amazing on new tyres. It felt like a different car; there was so much grip. I only had one lap on the new ones, as opposed to 20 laps on the old set, so obviously I haven’t used them as I should, and to be honest, I think there’s still more to come out of them. The whole team did a great job today and it looks encouraging for tomorrow. Once again, we need to keep cool, and work hard tonight to qualify well tomorrow."
Christijan Albers "I think we had a reasonable day. We just had some bad luck at the end of the session with traffic and I couldn’t put in a good lap, so it’s difficult to say how the car is. But I think everything is moving in the right direction and tomorrow we should be able to improve by a lot.”
Giorgio Mondini "It was a good morning, and an excellent afternoon. We were able to do even more than what we planned to do, actually, and ran a full programme without any problems. We improved the car in each session and the balance kept getting better with every run. The last three sets of tyres were aimed at improving our pace, and we found a dramatic difference in performance. I don’t think the progression came from me driving faster; it was purely the progression of the car. We found about a second between the first and last runs of the day, which is great. We worked in the right direction and tyres are working well. Overall it was a very good day. The guys did an excellent job setting up the car, and it was very nice to drive."
Colin Kolles, Managing Director: “We are trying to improve race by race, and obviously we’re getting a little bit closer. Today was the first time we’ve been in the top 5 and also the first time we’ve had two drivers in the top 10, so the progress is clear, especially considering the kind of fuel loads we were on. It looks promising for tomorrow, but we will have to work hard to achieve these results in qualifying, and not just in practice.”
Dominic Harlow, Chief Race and Test Engineer: "We found some better track conditions for the first two sessions here than we were expecting and that enabled us to get on with a lot of work, particularly on our third car. We carried out all of our normal tyre evaluations and Giorgio put in a very productive 66 laps over the course of the day. He also put in a very good time at the end, which is quite encouraging. The two race cars had trouble-free days dialling in their set-ups. Christijan had a little bit of traffic there at the end of the day, which prevented him from being up with the other two drivers, but we’re fairly positive with that and looking forward to tomorrow’s qualifying.”
