09/07/2004

Grand Prix of Great Britain - Free Practice Report

Panasonic Toyota Racing came to Silverstone fresh from the Regent Street parade demonstration in the heart of the British capital which saw a massive turn out and once again emphasised Formula 1's huge popularity.

The British Grand Prix is expected to be the last outing for the current TF104 chassis before it is replaced at Hockenheim by the development chassis into which everyone at the team's Cologne base has been putting in 100% effort.

Silverstone has a number of fast flowing corners where aerodynamic downforce is important to car performance an area that the team is hoping to improve substantially with the new car. The situation is also complicated by the flat open nature of the former World War 2 airfield which means that changes of wind direction can easily upset the handling balance. For its last outing in current guise therefore the TF104 faces a challenging weekend.

"It was the usual Friday Panis said, but we need to get more out of the car. We need to have a good look through all the data to try and make some positive steps tomorrow."

Da Matta added: "The performance of the car mirrored its behaviour at the test last month where there was quite a big difference in the feel in the high and low speed corners. The only real plus from today's running was that my mechanics changed the gearbox in just 20 minutes after I had a bearing problem at the start of the second session. That meant that it didn't really have too much of an impact on us completing our programme."

Ricardo Zonta commented: "Tyre selection is not as clear cut here as at many of the circuits and there were pluses and minuses with both of the tyres that we used today. I like Silverstone to drive but it is quite a bumpy circuit and that can upset the car's equilibrium quite a lot. We still have some work to do overnight."

In Friday's free practice Ricardo Zonta (1m20.095s) Olivier Panis (1m20.489s) and Cristiano da Matta (1m20.892s) finished the session in 13th 14th and 15th places respectively.

Kimi Raikkonen (1m18.655s) set the opening day pace in the new McLaren Mercedes MP4-19B that made its debut just a week ago at Magny Cours. Second fastest just 0.005s down was Giancarlo Fisichella's Sauber Petronas which boasted substantially revised sidepods and rear bodywork. Rubens Barrichello (1m19.138s) was third quickest for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro fractionally quicker than team mate Michael Schumacher (1m19.162s) David Coulthard (1m19.287s) and Jenson Button's Lucky Strike BAR Honda (1m19.401s).

Technical Director Chassis Mike Gascoyne summed up the day: "We are at a bit of a disadvantage here because we've only done one three-day test whereas Silverstone is obviously the home base of the British teams. We know we've still got a lot of work to do but we have collated a lot of data and we've just got to spend time working through it."