F1 Istanbul - More Friday Photos (MGP)

Enjoy a selection of the most interesting images taken at Istanbul Park on the first racing day!





















* Official photos courtesy of MERCEDES GP PETRONAS *

Copyright © 2010, Mercedes-Benz-Blog. All rights reserved.

F1 Istanbul - FRI - Free Practice (VMM)

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Istanbul, Turkey, May 28, 2010

Top spot in both sessions

JENSON BUTTON
- MP4-25A-03
- P1 programme: 21 laps, 1m29.615s (+.962s), 2nd
- P2 programme: 30 laps, 1m28.280s, 1st

“This morning was reasonably good, and this afternoon was better. I was struggling a little through Turn Eight, it’s an area we’ll be working on overnight because it’s pretty tricky through there at the moment. It’s a tough corner, especially if the car’s moving around – so we’ve got to hope we can solve some of those issues before tomorrow.


“The car feels reasonably good around here – there are still some areas where we’re not so strong, and the Red Bulls will once again be the cars to beat in qualifying tomorrow, we can’t get away from that. I just hope we’re closer than we’ve been in the last two races.

“I think the Ferrari will be quick here too. It should be the top four teams that we normally see, and possibly Renault as well, so I don’t think qualifying tomorrow will be boring. There should be some good battles.”

LEWIS HAMILTON
- MP4-25A-01
- P1 programme: 20 laps, 1m28.653s, 1st
- P2 programme: 32 laps, 1m28.672s (+.392s), 4th

“This is such a great circuit, and the grip didn’t seem too bad today. It also seems very tight between all the frontrunners – the times are very close. Our car doesn’t seem to be performing too badly, so I’m happy with today’s running.

“Turn Eight is quite bumpy as always, and you could see today that some of the others were having a few difficulties through there, but it wasn’t a problem for us.

“I have no doubts that tomorrow in qualifying the Red Bulls will pull out something extra, which they always seem able to do. We haven’t made too many changes to the car for this race, but we’ve got a chance this weekend, and I think we’ll be able to compete with them.”

MARTIN WHITMARSH
Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes

“We’ve made a number of small improvements to the car for this race, and we spent the day evaluating and back-to-backing those components on Jenson and Lewis’s cars. The job for the engineers now is to evaluate that data ahead of tomorrow’s sessions.

“We’re reasonably confident with the pace we showed today. While it’s not indicative of overall performance, we feel that our package should be quite efficient here, and, as always, we’re confident that we’ll be able to refine the car overnight ahead of qualifying tomorrow.

“This is a demanding circuit – for both drivers and engineers, and we’ve still got plenty of work to do to optimise our cars for qualifying and the race.”






















* Official photos and details courtesy of VODAFONE MCLAREN MERCEDES *

Copyright © 2010, Mercedes-Benz-Blog. All rights reserved.

F1 Istanbul - FRI - Free Practice (MGP)

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Istanbul, Turkey, May 28, 2010

The first of the practice sessions for the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix got underway today at the Istanbul Park circuit.


The MERCEDES GP PETRONAS drivers, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, spent the two ninety-minute sessions focusing on the evaluation of the team's new developments for their MGP W01 cars and working on the balance, set-up and tyres around the challenging 5.338km circuit.

Nico completed 47 laps finishing the day in sixth position with Michael completing 46 laps in seventh place.

Drivers - Car No. - Chassis No. - Practice 1 - Practice 2
Nico Rosberg - 4 - MGP W01 / 02 - 25 laps, 1:29.855, P4 - 22 laps, 1:28.914, P6
Michael Schumacher - 3 - MGP W01 / 01 - 24 laps, 1:29.750, P3 - 22 laps, 1:28.974, P7

Weather - Hot and sunny
Temperatures - Air: 26-30°C / Track: 29-53°C

NICO ROSBERG
“We made some good progress today and have been working hard with our updates for the car. It wasn’t a perfect day as we lost some time in the process of evaluating the new developments, particularly in the second session, so I was playing catch-up this afternoon. However we achieved a lot of interesting work and arrived at a decent balance by the end of the day so I am reasonably happy. We have a few question marks remaining and it will be a busy final practice session tomorrow. The early indications are that we have made a decent step forward and although we don’t know how much yet, it is a good job from the guys at the factory and at the track to get everything here and working.”

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER
“It’s really difficult to judge what the current picture is after today’s practice sessions, especially as we don’t know who was running on what fuel loads. We certainly have some improvements on the car which you can notice but it is very difficult to quantify the full effects coming from Monaco to here and thus not having a clear reference and comparison. Clearly the improvements are in the right direction but as always it is a matter of how quick we develop compared to our competitors. Turn eight is still a nice challenge here. It has small surprises in terms of bumps and it is fun to drive obviously. It is exciting and technical at the same time. Let’s wait and see what is going to happen tomorrow.”

ROSS BRAWN
“Today’s two practice sessions were particularly busy for the team as we had our first opportunity to evaluate our new developments on the track. Without track testing it is always a challenge to bring new parts directly onto the car but we were able to achieve some good work today. Both drivers are reasonably happy but as always, we will not be able to make a valid judgement on our progress until the end of the weekend.”

NORBERT HAUG
“Quite a busy start into the weekend for us. The team evaluated different aero options and in the end our long run pace in race conditions looked quite promising.”



* Official photos and details courtesy of MERCEDES GP PETRONAS *

Copyright © 2010, Mercedes-Benz-Blog. All rights reserved.