Timo Glock - Photo Credit: Marussia F1 Team
Not only was Timo Glock‘s practice programme disrupted by the afternoon rain in Monaco, but his running time in the dry morning session was curtailed by a mechanical problem.
Marussia team-mate Charles Pic, on the other hand, seemed to have a less eventful day. Despite this, however, he still finished behind the more experienced Glock on the final timesheets this evening.
“In general, the mixed conditions today made it very difficult to work on the car in the way we had planned,” said Glock. “We got a good start to the day this morning, but later in FP1 I had a problem with the front end and then a red flag cut short the session. In FP2 it was important to go out early and get a good run, but then it started raining.
“As it looks like this will not be the only time this weekend, we made use of the track time and switched to the Inters, but the track was very slippery – particularly the white lines – so, to be honest, the main focus was keeping the car on the track!”
Pic, who has won a couple of races around this circuit in junior series, obviously liked going out on the track in a Formula 1 car for the first time. “I have enjoyed my first day of driving in Monaco and now have some good experience in both the wet and the dry,” said the French rookie. “Generally a good start to my programme with no real issues to speak about, just a straightforward day – apart from the weather – and getting up to speed.
“Tomorrow is a non-running day for us but it will provide a further opportunity to work with my engineers, see where I need to improve and come back to the track even stronger on Saturday.”
Despite the challenges of the day, team prinicpal John Booth sounded broadly positive at the end of the second session. “We've had a good introduction today to what is often a challenging circuit,” he said. “The mixed weather conditions were not only good practice for the drivers, at a track that rewards their skill more than any other, but they also kept the engineers on their toes as they fought to get the best out of the available track time.
“We haven't achieved quite as much data gathering as perhaps we would have liked and once again it seems that the preparation of the tyres will be critical to good performance here. Having said that, of the data we have collected, we are confident that we will be able to work on set-ups during tomorrow in preparation for Saturday morning, which will enable us to work towards extracting the best from the tyres for the balance of the weekend.”
We're happy with today's performance as we came here with a certain amount of trepidation about whether our cars would be competitive. It was a disappointment to have missed the first session whilst we changed the steering setup on Kimi's car, but he's an old enough trooper to get himself up to speed on Saturday. The pace shown by Romain in both sessions was certainly encouraging. All the Monaco upgrades seem to be working well and the E20 is pretty happy around what is a very unique track.”
