2013 British Grand Prix, Friday

[Mark H]

Romain Grosjean ended the first day of practice for the British Grand Prix with the ninth fastest time, with team-mate Kimi Räikkönen posting a Friday 13th in what was a characteristically wet start to the weekend at Silverstone.

The team completed a solitary installation lap with Romain – and no running at all with Kimi – during the morning session due to an inclement wet track, resulting in all meaningful track time taking place in the drying afternoon session.

Pirelli’s wet and intermediate tyres were used today in addition to the hard, medium and developmental dry tyres.

Technical programme notes:

• We didn’t run in the morning – save for an installation lap – due to the wet conditions.
  
• In the afternoon, Kimi ran the team’s ‘Device’ for evaluation. He also has a different hair configuration.
  
• Romain ran with new specification figure-hugging bodywork.
  
• Pirelli’s wet (blue) tyres were used in the morning, the intermediate (green), developmental (no markings), hard (orange) and medium compound dry (white) tyres in the afternoon.
  

What we learned today:

• The Device appears to be working well, but will require data analysis to determine if it will be used for the rest of the weekend.
  
• Romain’s new aero-package also appears to be delivering what we want from it.
  

Kimi Räikkönen, E21-03

Free practice 1: No laps completed

Free practice 2: P13, 1:34.120, 30 laps

 

Kimi: “We’re reasonably happy with everything today. We put quite a lot of effort into testing the new Device with feels pretty okay. I only ran with the development and hard tyre so didn’t go for a faster lap, but it didn’t feel too bad and we can work out where everything will be once we put it all together. I don’t think we’re one of the very quickest, but I don’t think we’ll be too far away.”

Romain Grosjean, E21-02

Free practice 1: P14, No time set, 1 lap

Free practice 2: P9, 1:33.322, 38 laps

 

Romain: “It was a solid day here at Silverstone. Thankfully, the rain stopped for this afternoon and we could get some good laps in so we can make a call on setup and configuration for tomorrow. It’s hard to say exactly where the car is due to the conditions we had, plus we ran with a lot of different tyres so my engineers will have a busy evening checking the info to work out what’s best. The car feels good; I think if we can improve in a few areas we could be well placed for qualifying.”

 

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director:

“After a wash-out in the morning where we elected not to run, we had a productive afternoon. Kimi was happy with the balance of the car with the Device fitted and we made some tweaks to it by trying different settings too. All appears to be working well and we have a good amount of data from which to decide if we will run it for the rest of the weekend. Romain’s car also looks to be working fine with the new aero package. We’re not concerned by the lap times this afternoon; Kimi didn’t use the softer tyre while Romain ran with it very early in the session, so we’re happy that we will be more competitive than we were at the last race.”

 

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