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The Imola First Practice thread!
Comments
IMOLA, ITALY, April 22, 2005
It took late nights, long hours and unremitting determination, but the pay-off for the Minardi F1 Team came at 1102hrs today, when the first of the Faenza squad’s new Minardi Cosworth PS05 chassis, with Christijan Albers at the wheel, took to Imola’s Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari track for its initial Formula One practice session. The car of Patrick Friesacher followed three minutes later, and both cars then ran without any major technical issues during the morning session. Unfortunately, Albers’ car was sidelined in the afternoon after a wiring problem developed at the beginning of the session, but Friesacher continued at uninterrupted pace with his technical programme. The team has much to learn about the behaviour of the latest Minardi, and many aspects of the car have yet to be optimised, but at the conclusion of today, both drivers had made quantifiable progress in terms of developing an appropriate chassis set-up to cope with the demands of the Imola circuit.
Don't forget the championship is very long!
Give these guys a chance,
Second fastest car on the circuit in both practice sessions, in a new car, that has done minimal miles in practce.
Let them get used to the car and the support team to work onthe settings. Even a skate board is going to be better than the PS04.
Forza:D
Car looked good through Bassa and Variante. A bit nervous under braking perhaps.
Patricks "stop" in FP1 was an error on the timing. He was in the garage.
jk: it's the old gearbox that they're running. The shifts were noticably slow, like the Jordans. They are the two with the longest delays and the loudest backfires.
Albers came out in FP2 for a fairly quick installation lap and made it back in time for a timed lap but pulled into the pits instead.
I'll begin judging tomorrow as I'm not entirely convinced that either driver was pushing today.
So everybody calm down ! :spank:
Forza
The problem with downforce is that if you make any big changes it is often nessesary to change suspension settings to match (to prevent the car grounding or riding too high)
this can make car setup a bit of a compromise!!
This is nothing more than a real life test session. I htink everyone's expectations are far too high.
A team with more money would have already spent days on the test track. We've spent only one.
Time to take a deep breath and relax.
Oops, saw the other post too late.:spank:
[Edited on 22/4/2005 by vuurmuur]
The second explanation is that the design team have stiked out and this is 2003 revisited. Either way there is no quick fix. Time for Stoddart to grasp the nettle and rehire George Ryton. He headed up the deisn office from 99 to 2002 and still lives in Italy.
They were too slow,but handling seemed much better then the Jordans.
Both Jordans went of track and caused yellow flag situations.
They are faster though, but at what price????
If they spin during the race our boys will pass them for sure !!!:)
Still no Minardis
Schummi Sr over half a sec faster than anyone else so far.
I notice that Williams onyl did 3 laps, they mist be happy with their setup and concerned about the engines.
[Edited on 23/4/2005 by TasM]
What the **** is wrong with them?
[Edited on 23/4/2005 by MinardiSquad]