Friday at Catalunya

Weather

FP1: Overcast, dry; min / max track temp 17° - 19°, air temp 19°

FP2: Sunny / overcast, dry; min / max track temp 33° - 36°, air temp 23° - 20°

Fastest laps / positions:

FP1: KOV 1.28.373, 16th / VDG 1.28.600, 17th

FP2: VDG 1.25.963, 19th / PIC 1.26.930, 21st

Total laps:

FP1: KOV 14 / VDG 19

FP2: VDG 30 / PIC 35

Runplan

Giedo van der Garde, car #21, chassis CT03-04

FP1

1003 - 1007: Run 1, installation lap, 1 lap (wet tyres)

Changes: rear brake blanking

1036 - 1052: Run 2, 8 laps (intermediate tyres)

Changes: front wing flap angle

1112 - 1123: Run 3, 5 laps (intermediate tyres)

Changes: front wing flap angle, brake balance, front brake duct blanking

1125 - 1132: Run 4, 5 laps (hard tyres)

FP2

1402 - 1413: Run 1, 7 laps (hard tyres)

Changes: front wing flap angle, brake balance, front torsion bar, front anti-roll bar

1423 - 1429: Run 2, 4 laps (medium tyres)

Changes: front wing flap angle, brake balance

1440 - 1453: Run 3, 8 laps (hard tyres)

Changes: front wing flap angle, front torsion bar

1507 - 1526: Run 4, 11 laps (medium tyres)

Driver quotes

Heikki Kovalainen: "For me that was a pretty good session, even though we lost quite a bit of time with a mechanical issue. Once that was fixed we got on with the program and ended up only losing one run and as FP1 started with a wet track everyone else was limiting their track time as well, so the relative loss was minimal. In the session we were mainly working through back-to-back comparisons of some of the new parts we've brought here and it was good to see that the car generally felt much better than the one I drove in Bahrain. The balance has been improved, especially mid-corner and in both low and high speed turns, so it's easier to push, but with so few dry laps today it's too early to tell how much we've gained from the package we have for this race. The rest of the weekend is supposed to be better weather so we'll learn more about how to get the most out of the new parts in FP2 and FP3, but we'll only really find out where we are, and where everyone else is, on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday."

Charles Pic: "Having sat out FP1 I was looking forward to trying out the new parts in FP2. On the first couple of runs the car had too much understeer in the low and medium speed corners so we made a couple of mechanical adjustments and the balance started to improve on runs three and four. Tyre degradation was also not too bad on either compound, but we have more work to do on bringing the tyres up to temperature so we can get them working efficiently as soon as possible. We'll look at that tonight, and how we can optimise the setup with the range of new parts we have here to improve the overall balance as we have quite a lot of time to come from that, and then we'll aim to pick up where we finished in Bahrain."

Giedo van der Garde: "With Friday morning's weather we didn't get as many laps done as we'd like in FP1, but I was still happy with how the car felt with the new parts on it. We didn't have KERS for the session which obviously knocks off about 3/10ths a lap, but we were focusing on testing the new parts so even though the times were ok it was more important to gather as much data as possible.

"In the afternoon session we carried on with evaluation of the update package and we definitely made more progress. The car had good balance on the medium tyres, both on short and long runs, and I think we showed quite good pace on that compound and on the hards but we need to work on the car's behaviour on the entry into corners. Against that is the fact that the car has much better traction out of the corners and that's a really positive sign. Now we have the normal late Friday ahead of us and we'll be focusing on improving the setup generally so we can attack quali as hard as possible, and put us in good shape for the race on Sunday."

CaterhamF1

Giedo after Friday practice at Shanghai

Giedo van der Garde - FP1: 21st, FP2: 20th

"Both practice sessions for me were ok but we've had issues all day that have held us back a bit. This morning we had a KERS issue that meant we were running without KERS for the whole session, and that obviously didn't help, and then in the afternoon I overcooked it going into turn one on one of the medium sets and that meant we had to cut short the FP2 plan so we didn't use up another set of tyres.

 

 

 

Despite that we have a lot of good data on the medium tyres from both sessions and the performance run on the softs went ok. Degradation levels are going to be big here, particularly on the softs which had pretty much gone by the end of the long run we did on them, so we'll have to look closely at how we deal with that on Sunday.

"We know this isn't going to be a particularly easy weekend for us but I still think we can fight tomorrow and on Sunday. The atmosphere in the team is good and if we can repeat the sort of race performance we had on Sunday in Malaysia we'll be ok."

ESPN.F1

Giedo: Practice 1 and 2

Giedo van der Garde: "I think we've had a pretty good day. We've completed a lot of laps on all the tyres except the full wets and run through the whole program. In FP1 it was the normal runplan, focusing on the hard prime tyres and starting to understand deg levels on those - our pace on that compound and the wear rates were both encouraging, but we'll have to work a bit more on getting them up to temperature efficiently and then keeping them in that first phase of degradation as long as possible.

 

"In FP2 we did a couple of short and long runs on the primes and one on the medium tyre, as well as a stint on the inters when the rain started. It wasn't the intense rain we had on track yesterday but it was still enough to mean we needed to run the inters and with rain possible in quali and in the race that's more good data for us. It's also good for me to get as many laps as possible done on the intermediates - it's all part of the learning process and with full running in both FP1 and FP2 today, compared to Melbourne, we're in a better position for tomorrow and Sunday than we were last weekend."


FP1

1001 - 1004: Run 1, installation lap, 1 lap (hard tyres)
Changes: front / rear brake duct blanking
1041 - 1053: Run 2, 6 laps (hard tyres)
Changes: front / rear brake duct blanking, front toe-in
1115 - 1134: Run 3, 10 laps (hard tyres)

FP2

1400 - 1411: Run 1, installation lap, 7 laps (hard tyres)
Changes: front wing flap angle
1415 - 1434: Run 2, 9 laps (medium tyres)
Changes: front wing flap angle, brake balance, front / rear brake duct blanking
1438 - 1449 Run 3, 4 laps (hard tyres)
Changes: brake balance
1508 - 1520: Run 4, 7 laps (intermediate tyres)
Changes: front wing flap angle
1523 - 1533: Run 5, 5 laps (hard tyres)

 

Caterham