10/09/2004

Grand Prix of Italy - Free Practice Round-Up

Ricardo Zonta (Car 16 Chassis TF104/10B)
First Session Classification: 16th 10 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m22.607s (+2.081s)
Second Session Classification: 14th 22 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m22.298s (+1.452s)
"After a productive test session here in Monza last week I think we continued our work in a positive way today. During the test we concentrated on a variety of things in preparation for this race but we did not work so much on the balance of the car. Today's two sessions were very useful to work on fine-tuning the set-up and I am very happy with the balance we have. We also carried out the usual Michelin comparison and we found a consistent tyre for qualifying and the race. It was a good first day and we have learned a lot for the rest of the weekend."

Olivier Panis (Car 17 Chassis TF104/09B)
First Session Classification: 15th 8 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m22.487s (+1.961s)
Second Session Classification: 18th 15 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m22.813s (+1.967s)
"It was not such a good day for me as my car was suffering from a rear vibration and a problem with the brake pedal. Unfortunately we could not find the source of the disturbance during the sessions so I struggled to carry out the usual Friday programme. Now we must check the data carefully in order to find out where the problem comes from so we can fix it. Due to the time we lost today it is important that we can make full use of tomorrow's free practice sessions."

Ryan Briscoe (Car 38 Chassis TF104/07)
First Session Classification: 17th 21 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m22.815 s (+2.289s)
Second Session Classification: 12th 35 laps completed
Lap Time: 1m22.197s (+1.351s)
"I am extremely happy with the work we managed to achieve today. We had a few difficulties with the car set-up in the first practice but the team worked well to make improvements over the lunchbreak. Consequently the car was in good shape right from the start of the second session. We completed both sets of long runs perfectly with no problems whatsoever. Combined with the work that we were able to complete at last week's Monza test I hope we can be quite competitive this weekend."

Mike Gascoyne - Technical Director Chassis
"It was a mixed start to the weekend. Ryan completed his standard programme of evaluating the two Michelin compounds that we have here and both tyres seem to be very consistent. Ryan was happy with the balance of his car and he did an excellent job throughout the day. Unfortunately Olivier felt a vibration at the rear of his car in both sessions that we could not trace. We will find and cure the problem for tomorrow morning. Overall though we seem to have a competitive package here for this weekend with a reasonably strong pace over the long runs."