PRACTICE
The opening day of practice for the second race of the 2010 season, theAustralian Grand Prix held at Albert Park in Melbourne, got underway todaywith the two practice sessions taking place in very different conditions.
The first session began at 12.30pm local time under blue skies and warmsunshine. Nico and Michael completed their installation laps and thenremained in the garage until the track, which uses public roads, had cleanedup a little. With just over 30 minutes of the session gone, the pair headedback out to begin their set-up programme for the MGP W01.
The start of the second session at 16.30pm was greeted with a brief rainshower which kept the cars in the garage for the first fifteen minutes. Asecond shower arriving shortly afterwards limited the dry running availablewith Nico and Michael going out on the intermediate tyres to completepractice pit stops and track familiarisation. The conditions improved forthe final quarter of an hour to allow for some dry running to end the day.
Michael completed 35 laps today, ending the day in P4 on the times, withNico completing 40 laps in P10.
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER"As often on Fridays, the performance is difficult to judge as everybodyseemed to be on different programmes. Having said that, I am quite happywith today's sessions, even if we did not run too much overall. My firstsession was a bit handicapped by red flags, later we faced some rain in thesecond session. But all in all, we learned a lot and we could improve theset up of our car quite reasonably. In the end our times were competitive soI think we can look forward to the rest of the weekend."
NICO ROSBERG "The first session was ok this morning and we learnt some good things. Thisafternoon was a bit frustrating with the weather interruptions but we werestill able to learn a good amount on the tyres which gives us somepreparation for tomorrow. There are still some set-up issues to look at andimprovements to make on the car so we have plenty of work to do overnight."
ROSS BRAWN"It was a frustrating afternoon with the weather but we were able to getsome good work done this morning. However it's always very difficult tojudge where you are on the first day. We made some progress on Michael'sside and he was fairly happy with the car. Nico was not quite so happy andwe may have gone the wrong way on some changes so there is still some workto do on the set-up of his car."
NORBERT HAUG"There were quite challenging circumstances for the teams and drivers in thesecond session with the frequently changing weather conditions. Nico wasamongst the quickest in the first session and Michael in the second. But itis difficult to judge our performance compared to our competitors and wehave to wait until tomorrow to find out what our results of today mean. Allin all it was a productive day and we should have a reasonable baseline forqualifying."
