Smooth Dancer - German Gp, Friday 20 July 2012

Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean took to the Hockenheim circuit today for the first practice sessions ahead of Sunday’s German Grand Prix. In mixed wet and dry conditions the team assessed a number of aerodynamic developments as well as conducting the usual Friday programme.

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director - Technical programme notes :

• Pirelli’s developmental hard tyre and the regular medium compound rubber were used in the morning.
  
• The intermediate and wet tyres were used in the afternoon.
  
• Aside from the more obvious development tested on Kimi’s car, the team also assessed a number of other aerodynamic updates.
  

What we learned today :

• Our aerodynamic upgrades look to be doing what they should.
  
• The prototype aero concept trialled on Kimi’s car worked as expected.
  

Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05

Free practice 1 : P15, 1:18.831, 14 laps

Free practice 2 : P10, 1:29.327, 22 laps

Kimi : “We didn’t learn a lot today with the weather conditions as they were ; it was like Silverstone when we also didn’t have very good conditions. We tried a few different things which I think some people noticed. It would have been nice to have some more dry track time but you can’t do anything about that. The track does feel quite slippery when it’s wet ; it’s definitely not very grippy in these conditions. Overall, it was a pretty normal Friday when you try different things and get as much running as the weather allows.”

Romain Grosjean, E20-04

Free practice 1 : P10, 1:18.130, 21 laps

Free practice 2 : P5, 1:28.420, 20 laps

Romain : “It was a difficult session with the rain coming down. It looks like we’ll have more wet running tomorrow so it was good to get a feel for the wet and intermediate tyres. We had a few things we were hoping to test in dry conditions but unfortunately this was not the case. If we get to Sunday without any dry laps then people won’t have so much of an idea about tyre degradation and the difference between the compounds, which may help me starting further back on the grid with the penalty. Either way, we now have a good base line setup from today and hopefully this will help bring us a decent result at the end of the weekend.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director :

“We saw a tricky first session with track conditions changing a lot due to intermittent rain, which didn’t aid the learning process regarding our new parts. The afternoon was far more productive as the wet conditions were reasonably consistent. We looked at both the intermediate and wet tyres in the second session to give us some good data if qualifying or the race are run in similar conditions, and also assessed a variety of set-ups and tyre pressures. Both cars ran with aero updates, which were rather more visible on one car than the other. We’ve seen encouraging signs from our latest prototype concept and although we won’t race it here, it’s likely to make another appearance during practice in Budapest.”