Montagny happy to be back

Yet again it was a hard day of work for the people at Super Aguri F1. As the third SA06 chassis arrived late, the team had to work hard to get it ready in time for the free practice for Franck Montagny. Despite a minor problem with the grearbox of the new chassis, all three drivers were able to complete their programma today.

“First of all ‘thanks’ to the mechanics because I know that the car arrived late and that they worked overnight to prepare it. Unfortunately this morning we had problems so we could not set up the car correctly and this afternoon we had a lot of work to do on the tyres. To start with I was not too happy about the set-up of the car as it was very nervous, but we didn't really have time to work on it, so we did a good job considering that. Two hours running is always a little bit too short, but I'm happy to be back driving with the team and to give some information and feedback that I hope will be useful for the weekend.”

“It was a very important day for us; to shakedown the SA06. We did not encounter any major problems, which is great. Franck completed a respectable amount of running with a few set-up changes and collected valuable tyre data. I was relying on that as I did not run in the first session, as we had planned. During the second session we ran the normal installation lap to check that everything was okay and then ran through our planned programme. The car seems to be working well and if everything is okay when we look at the SA06’s data tonight, we will continue to improve the car setup tomorrow.”

“Today was a good start for this race weekend for me. It was the first time for me to drive the circuit but I was able to learn the layout quickly this morning. During this afternoon’s session we worked on improving our set-up and I am happy with the result so I think that we are ready for tomorrow.”

“I am very happy with the debut of the third SA06. Franck did a very good job today. During the afternoon session he set a competitive time and provided us with a good amount of data from the new car. Both Takuma and Sakon set times above the Midland’s, so overall it has been a good day for the team.”