Don’T Rain On My Parade - Belgian Gp, Friday 31 August 2012

Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean took to the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in wet conditions today for the first practice sessions ahead of Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.

The cold and very wet conditions meant that the team only completed limited running in the morning, when both cars ran the team’s new aerodynamic device. No laps were completed by the team in the afternoon.

Free Practice 2 Summary

0mins : It’s raining, a lot

5mins : Kimi gets into his car

17mins : Kimi gets out of his car

29mins : Romain thinks about putting his helmet on, but decides against it

45mins : At the halfway stage, it’s still raining

51mins : Will Buxton and Natalie Pinkham drop by to cheer us up

68mins : The team fire up Kimi’s engine to keep warm

73mins : Serious debate begins as to the best choice of biscuits with our tea

80mins : Romain’s side of the garage gets a bit chilly, so we fire up his motor too

90mins : An enthralling session of damp media members and biscuit banter concludes

Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05

Free practice 1 : P23, 2:46.580, 9 laps

Free practice 2 : No time set, no laps completed

Kimi :

“There’s not much to say about today. It was too wet to run and there was little point as the forecast is for better conditions over the next two days. I’m looking forward to driving the circuit in the dry. It’s a shame that we haven’t been able to evaluate our new developments as it would have been interesting to see how they perform here. Tomorrow is another day, let’s see what happens.”

Romain Grosjean, E20-04

Free practice 1 : P21, 2:38.701, 9 laps

Free practice 2 : No time set, no laps completed

Romain :

“It’s a big shame we couldn’t do much running today as it was so wet. I was really looking forward to trying the famous ‘Device’ for the first time, but I guess I’ll have to wait. The weather should be better tomorrow, so we’ll have a busy time getting two days of evaluation into one session and then going straight into qualifying. The E20 has been strong at every circuit so far this year, so I’m sure it will be pretty good around this track in any case.”

James Allison, Technical Director :

“The forecast for the next two days is for dry and warmer weather so running today was not very useful in terms of preparing for qualifying or the race. Today’s rain also prevented us from seeing how the ‘Device’ would perform in the expected race conditions. With discretion being the better part of valour we will conduct P3 tomorrow with a conventional aero package rather than attempting to squeeze Friday’s intended evaluation into the precious final practice session. On the plus side we learned today that the cars are working fine and we’re happy to end the day with no damage from running in these difficult conditions.”