Fri: STR, Toyota, Honda, FIndia

HONDA

Friday 18th July 2008

Toro Rosso, Toyota, Honda and Force India put in the mileage in Germany on Friday but failed to break into the top ten.

Toro Rosso
Sebastian Vettel: It's much cooler than last week and we are not seeing the hot and sunny side of Germany! I think the rain between the test and this weekend means the track surface has much less grip. The track needs to get rubbered-in again. This afternoon, the wind was quite tricky too and you could lose the car because of that. Overall, I think we can be quite happy with the set-up and the balance we found, which was based on the data from last week, while today we did a few more tests to figure out what to do for tomorrow and for the race."

Sebastien Bourdais: I did not get to do too many laps today, because in the morning I had a problem with a flywheel sensor and then this afternoon it was the gearbox. But the guys did a great job to get me out before the end of the session. The track is very different to the way it was at last week's test. So we had to make some changes to the set-up. The car's not bad and I think we know the way to go to improve."

Toyota
Jarno Trulli: It was a normal Friday for me. We did a lot of set-up work and evaluated the new aerodynamic package. It all went very smoothly and we had no problems so we have a lot of information to help us tomorrow. Now we will wait to see how competitive we are. As usual I have come here wanting to fight for the points. We had a successful test here last week, I did a lot of laps and got a lot of mileage but I don't want to be overly optimistic as it depends on many things and the battle is very close. We will fight hard tomorrow to achieve the best possible grid position and then battle for points."

Timo Glock: The first session this morning was pretty good despite the changing track conditions but in the second session the car felt completely different. It was difficult to drive and the wind was changing, so it was pretty tricky to find the right way in terms of set-up. Also I ran wide at the last corner and the car was launched into the air so we need to look carefully to make sure it is okay. We have to analyse all the set-up data and work out which direction to go in tomorrow. I have always had a good experience here at Hockenheim and in the test last week we looked pretty good. Qualifying in the top 10 should be possible."

Honda
Jenson Button: A busy but productive practice for us today. We made some improvements to the balance and set-up of the car in both sessions, in addition to conducting an evaluation of the prime and option tyres. However I am not completely happy with the balance, so we have some work ahead of us before qualifying."

Rubens Barrichello: We found a reasonable balance on the car during the morning session, however unfortunately we struggled to continue the progress this afternoon. The car had a real lack of grip in the slightly warmer afternoon temperatures, with the rear in particular feeling unstable. It was a tough session as we tried to work out the problem and we have a lot of work to do overnight to get the car back to a driveable set-up."

Force India
Adrian Sutil: It was a fairly difficult day to be honest as the grip level was very low and we expected better track conditions. The set-up we had at the test last week was quite good, but today we weren't able to replicate it with the way the track was. Sometimes the car had oversteer and then understeer, so it made it very difficult to drive. Otherwise in the end we tried a lot of different things, so for sure we will improve over the weekend."

Giancarlo Fisichella: Today was OK, although the grip was not as good as we had last week at the test and obviously there was some rain this morning that made it even worse. We still have to work on the balance for tomorrow as it was quite inconsistent and at times it was difficult to push, but there's still another practice session tomorrow. We weren't so far away from Q2 in Silverstone last time, so we can certainly try again here."