Maranello, 23rd June 2009

We had some pretty interesting improvements on the F60 at Silverstone, such as an improved front suspension and a new front wing. On such a fast track it was important to understand how much downforce we could have: we can say for sure that the car wasn’t bad in terms of the set up, but we’re still missing downforce to be able to compete with the leaders. Having said that, the developments go in the right direction.

The qualifying seemed very promising. I was very happy with my lap in Q2, but then, when I had refueled the car didn’t go as good anymore. Starting from the fifth row my goal was to gain some points. This time I had a good start: the main straight is quite long, but it wasn’t enough to pass Nakajima. I came on the grass and then I was on fifth position, impossible to gain more, because my first stint was too short. I couldn’t overtake: in the fast corners at Silverstone it’s very difficult to stay behind the car in front of you, especially when you have less fuel on board than the first ten cars on the grid. So I had a difficult race. In the end I gained one point. Better than nothing, but still a poor result. We are on position four in the Constructors’ Championship and I think that this is our current value. We’re out there fighting for third position, but the two teams on the top are still ahead of us in terms of performance.

After Silverstone we have two whole weeks to get ready as good as possible for the last two races before the summer break. The first of these two races is at the Nuerburgring. We’ll get there with some improvements. It’s a track with more slow corners and more braking points than the English circuit. We have to be more competitive, but it will also depend from the improvements the others can make. As usual. I want to congratulate Sebastian for his great race. If the Brawns had some problems we could benefit: the next circuit is very different from Silverstone. We’ll see how things go before we make any conclusions. 

Source - Kimi’s Official Website

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Felipe Massa - 4th: ”I almost feel as though I won the race! To start eleventh and finish fourth is a really great result. We weren’t expecting it and so we are doubly happy. We had a good strategy and I pushed to the maximum at the key moments. Today, the KERS was a great help, especially at the start, but the whole car was also working well. The team did a great job and the results speak for themselves. We have to continue down this route. It will be interesting to understand how the car’s performance improved from one day to the next. Maybe it just needed those few extra degrees of track temperature to get the tyres working better.”

Kimi Raikkonen - 8th: ”I got a good start, but then I was unable to push as much as I could have done because I was always in traffic. Obviously, my grid position, given my fuel load, penalised me in terms of strategy. After the first run of pit stops, I found myself right behind Trulli and from then on, my race was pretty much over. I tried to pass him getting very close sometimes, but it wasn’t really on as overtaking is still very difficult. I ended up fighting with Glock but I could defend my position comfortably, both thanks to the KERS and to the fact that I actually had quite a good pace. It’s a shame, because given where I was at the end of the first lap, I could have got a better result. A single point is definitely nothing to get excited about, but it’s better than nothing. The car wasn’t bad today, much better than it had been in qualifying yesterday.”

Stefano Domenicali: ”After the less than brilliant qualifying yesterday, our aim was to get both cars home in the points and we did it. Felipe drove a fantastic race: starting eleventh and finishing fourth with no one in front of him on the grid retiring is a great performance. Kimi got a great start, making the most of the KERS, but after that he was unable to make the most of having moved up the order, because of traffic. Today, we saw one team clearly ahead of the rest, but we showed we could match the pace of all the others, including those who only two weeks ago, were clearly better. We will have to study in depth everything that happened this weekend to understand how the performance level can change so suddenly, one way or the other, without there having been any changes made to the cars.”

Chris Dyer: ”We got the most out of a weekend that was definitely not brilliant in terms of performance. Both our drivers had great starts, getting the most of out the KERS. Then Felipe picked up a good pace that, along with the strategy, allowed him to move up quite a few places. As for Kimi, he was slowed by traffic and the key moment in his race was when Trulli came out on track ahead of him when he made his first pit stop. He was unable to pass him on the track and then, during the run of pit stops, other drivers were able to get ahead of him. Yesterday, we were rather disappointed both with our result and with our performance, but today things were definitely better: however, we have to admit there is still a great deal of work to do to be competitive at the highest level, which is where we want to be.”

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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So it wasn’t to be for Button or his expecting fans. Yet another Brit falls foul of the home GP jinx. Well not really Vettel went out and won it, with the help of its brilliant new motor! Not only did he win but he took some serious points from Jenson the championship leader, so maybe we will get that title fight after all. Thanks to a 1-2 finish Red Bull have closed the gap in the constructors title too.

Sadly another disappointing weekend for Kimi fans though. After a great Q2 - we all expected more than his final grid position of 9th. The Finn more than made up for that with a fantastic start, really widening the normal track width and almost taking to the run off - he put himself into 5th position after Copse corner.

Sadly it all went downhill from then on as his strategy meant a longer first stop, losing out to Trulli and then being stuck behind the train, with no chance to push. He was then passed during stops by his team mate Massa, Rosberg & Button. Still at least he got a point rather than nothing. The other two Brazilians had a great weekend too - with Piquet and Rubens also out doing their team mates fair and square.

Not the most classic GP but an amazing and dominant win from Vettel, he made it look easy. He spoilt the Brit party, with the majority of the fans leaving Silverstone disappointed. It wasn’t really Sebs fault though, as Button & Lewis could manage no better than 6th and 16th - which had nothing to do with the young German.

The next race in Germany is going to be an interesting one - with more developments for most teams and Button in particular out to ruin Vettel’s home GP win dream. Here’s hoping its a better race for Kimi - its awful to see him fighting for the final point.

Jemela Coventry

Gokimi Team

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1h22:49.328
 2.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +    15.188
 3.  Barrichello   Brawn GP-Mercedes     (B)  +    41.175
 4.  Massa         Ferrari               (B)  +    45.043
 5.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota       (B)  +    45.915
 6.  Button        Brawn GP-Mercedes     (B)  +    46.285
 7.  Trulli        Toyota                (B)  +  1:08.307
 8.  Raikkonen     Ferrari               (B)  +  1:09.622
 9.  Glock         Toyota                (B)  +  1:09.823
10.  Fisichella    Force India-Mercedes  (B)  +  1:11.522
11.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota       (B)  +  1:14.023
12.  Piquet        Renault               (B)  +     1 lap
13.  Kubica        BMW Sauber            (B)  +     1 lap
14.  Alonso        Renault               (B)  +     1 lap
15.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber            (B)  +     1 lap
16.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  +     1 lap
17.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes  (B)  +     1 lap
18.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  +     1 lap

Fastest lap: Vettel, 1:20.735

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                      On lap
Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)    25
Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes      (B)    24

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Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel scored his second race win of the season after he used a two stop, soft – soft – hard tyre strategy to win a fast-paced British Grand Prix in cool and cloudy conditions at Silverstone. 
Vettel finished fifteen seconds ahead of team-mate Mark Webber, who used the same strategy. The final podium position went to Brawn GP Formula 1 Team driver Rubens Barrichello, who used a softhard- soft tyre strategy. Bridgestone’s soft tyre proved to be the superior race tyre here for most competitors, giving a faster lap time than the hard, and giving good consistency too.

Hiroshi Yasukawa – Director of Bridgestone Motorsport, says
“Congratulations to Sebastian Vettel for his second race win of the season and Red Bull Racing on their second one-two of the year. Silverstone has a great atmosphere and we have seen a fantastic crowd here throughout the weekend in what is both a very important market for Bridgestone and an important base for our Bridgestone Motorsport operation.”

Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development, says
“Today we saw very hot pace from the Red Bulls in the cool weather conditions as they used the Bridgestone hard and soft tyre s very well indeed. The best lap times of both Red Bull cars were over half a second faster than anyone else. The soft Bridgestone worked very well, especially after the second stint when there was more rubber down on the track. The hard Bridgestone did take longer to deliver its best lap time and we saw a number of illustrations of this as part of some interesting battles for position. Silverstone helped serve us an exciting fast race here today.” 

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Ninth and eleventh places for Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa respectively: that was the outcome of qualifying at the British Grand Prix for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. Thanks to a good performance in Q2, Kimi managed to get through to the final part of the session, but then was unable to do better than ninth, while Felipe didn’t get into Q3, because of a mistake in the third sector of the track, which cost him precious time. “Clearly this is a bad result,” but frankly we hadn’t expected much better,” commented Stefano Domenicali. “It’s pointless to look for one specific element to blame: this is our current rating in this sort of temperature range and on a track with so many fast corners. The car does not have enough aerodynamic downforce to generate the required grip through the tyres. Having said that, we must not lose heart. We know we face having to try and race our way up the order tomorrow, trying to bring home some useful points for the classification.”

Felipe Massa:
“Not a great weekend for us, there’s no point denying it. Today I missed out on getting into Q3 because I made a mistake in the final sector. Up until then, I was a few tenths up on my previous best time. We must always push to the limit because the car doesn’t give you a margin to make it through in qualifying and that can lead to one making mistakes. The F60 feels balanced but we are not quick enough. In the last two races, some teams have made significant progress in their development, while we haven’t improved our performance enough. It will be a hard race, but maybe something will happen that could see us getting a good result. From our side, all we can do is give it our best shot and try all the time.”

Kimi Raikkonen:
“To be honest, I didn’t expect much more. This is our current performance level and today it was difficult to do any better. Each weekend we try our best: again on this track, the F60 was well balanced but, as we have seen so often this year, we don’t have enough grip. I did a good lap in Q2 but, with race fuel on board, the car was not as quick as the others. We have improved the car in these last two races, but it seems the others have taken a bigger step forward than we have.”

Chris Dyer:
“Definitely not a very exciting result, but it matches what we had expected from yesterday. We have improved the performance of the car since then, but not enough to fight it out with the best. Tomorrow’s race will definitely be very difficult for us. We will try and do our best to get both cars home in the points.”

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Vettel will start tomorrow’s British GP and will be going all out to win to close the championship gap. Kimi Raikkonen made it through to Q3 but sadly could do no better than nineth. Home favourites Jenson and Lewis will start from 6th and 19th on the grid. It should be an exciting race with the title favourite starting off the front two rows.

Qualifying Times

Pos  Driver       Team                       Q1        Q2        Q3

 1.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:18.685  1:18.119  1:19.509

 2.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:19.325  1:18.335  1:19.856

 3.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:18.674  1:18.209  1:19.868

 4.  Trulli       Toyota                (B)  1:18.886  1:18.240  1:20.091

 5.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:18.530  1:18.575  1:20.216

 6.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:18.957  1:18.663  1:20.289

 7.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:19.228  1:18.591  1:20.361

 8.  Glock        Toyota                (B)  1:19.198  1:18.791  1:20.490

 9.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               (B)  1:19.010  1:18.566  1:20.715

10.  Alonso       Renault               (B)  1:19.167  1:18.761  1:20.741

11.  Massa        Ferrari               (B)  1:19.148  1:18.927

12.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:19.730  1:19.308

13.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:19.732  1:19.353

14.  Piquet       Renault               (B)  1:19.555  1:19.392

15.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:19.559  1:19.448

16.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:19.802

17.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:19.898

18.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:19.909

19.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:19.917

20.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:20.236

All Timing Unofficial

Post-qualifying car weights

Pos  Driver                Weight (kg)

 1.  Sebastian Vettel       666.5

 2.  Rubens Barrichello     657.5

 3.  Mark Webber            659.5

 4.  Jarno Trulli           658.0

 5.  Kazuki Nakajima        652.5

 6.  Jenson Button          657.5

 7.  Nico Rosberg           661.5

 8.  Timo Glock             660.0

 9.  Kimi Raikkonen         654.0

10.  Fernando Alonso        654.0

11.  Felipe Massa           675.0 *

12.  Robert Kubica          689.5 *

13.  Heikki Kovalainen      695.5 *

14.  Nelson Piquet          682.5 *

15.  Nick Heidfeld          665.5 *

16.  Giancarlo Fisichella   668.0 *

17.  Sebastien Bourdais     687.5 *

18.  Adrian Sutil           692.0 *

19.  Lewis Hamilton         666.0 *

20.  Sebastien Buemi        672.5 *

* declared weight

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Free Practice 1

Pos  Driver       Team                       Time              Laps

 1.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:19.400            20

 2.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:19.682  + 0.282   19

 3.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:20.227  + 0.827   20

 4.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:20.242  + 0.842   29

 5.  Alonso       Renault               (B)  1:20.458  + 1.058   26

 6.  Massa        Ferrari               (B)  1:20.471  + 1.071   23

 7.  Trulli       Toyota                (B)  1:20.585  + 1.185   32

 8.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:20.650  + 1.250   26

 9.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:20.815  + 1.415   32

10.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:20.838  + 1.438   25

11.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:20.913  + 1.513   22

12.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:21.029  + 1.629   22

13.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:21.103  + 1.703   24

14.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               (B)  1:21.179  + 1.779   27

15.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:21.384  + 1.984   23

16.  Glock        Toyota                (B)  1:21.386  + 1.986   32

17.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:21.489  + 2.089   26

18.  Piquet       Renault               (B)  1:21.525  + 2.125   30

19.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:21.590  + 2.190   37

20.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:21.801  + 2.401   16

Free Practice 2

Pos  Driver       Team                       Time              Laps

 1.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:19.456            39

 2.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:19.597  + 0.141   35

 3.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:20.141  + 0.685   41

 4.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:20.209  + 0.753   36

 5.  Alonso       Renault               (B)  1:20.237  + 0.781   36

 6.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:20.244  + 0.788   26

 7.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:20.417  + 0.961   35

 8.  Trulli       Toyota                (B)  1:20.458  + 1.002   40

 9.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:20.468  + 1.012   42

10.  Piquet       Renault               (B)  1:20.608  + 1.152   37

11.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:20.622  + 1.166   23

12.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:20.733  + 1.277   37

13.  Glock        Toyota                (B)  1:20.762  + 1.306   37

14.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:20.767  + 1.311   28

15.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:20.932  + 1.476   35

16.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:20.945  + 1.489   36

17.  Massa        Ferrari               (B)  1:21.005  + 1.549   37

18.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               (B)  1:21.132  + 1.676   38

19.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:21.413  + 1.957   40

20.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:21.668  + 2.212   37

All Timing Unofficial

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Bridgestone’s hard tyre proved to be the fastest rubber on the harsh surface of the Silverstone circuit for the first day of the British Grand Prix. In cloudy and windy conditions, Sebastian Vettel set the day’s fastest lap time, a 1min 19.400secs, in his Red Bull Racing car during the morning practice session.

Vettel was also the fastest driver in the afternoon practice session, also using the hard Bridgestone to set a time of 1min 19.456secs. Mark Webber (Red Bull Racing) was second fastest in both sessions today.

Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development

What was significant about today’s running?
“Today was a little strange. It was very windy, which affects the cars differently depending on the wind direction and can make it difficult to get the best set-up to make the best use of our tyres. In the morning we saw some graining on the hard front Bridgestones, which were the only tyres used in this session. In the afternoon, the track temperature was warmer and both compounds were used. We did not see the expected amount of graining with the soft tyre, meaning that it worked well, and also there was no graining on the hard. There were not the usual improvements in lap time through this session, and we believe that the wind and fuel levels may have made a difference here.”

How do you expect this allocation to work over the weekend?
“The British weather will play a big part in answering this question. Not only did we have relatively high winds at the circuit today, it was also colder than we see at most grands prix. At today’s temperatures, the soft Bridgestone could well be the better qualifying and race tyre for most people, however if the temperatures are warmer the hard Bridgestone could look like a more attractive race tyre.” 

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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Felipe Massa - 17th: ”I am not very happy with the way these two free practice sessions went. The track was rather dirty and the wind also had an effect. We didn’t manage to find the right way to go to improve the balance of the car. There is definitely a lot of work awaiting us in preparation for qualifying, where the most realistic target at the moment is to get into the top ten.”

Kimi Raikkonen - 18th: ”Difficult to say where we are in respect to the others: we will have to wait for tomorrow’s qualifying to find out. Clearly, looking at today’s results, we are definitely not in for an easy weekend. The car’s not bad in terms of balance, but doesn’t seem to be quick enough. The tyres are the same as in Turkey, but of course it is much cooler here: on the first lap, the performance between the two types is quite different, but then over a longer run, they tend to be similar. As predicted, there’s a wind blowing on the track, but it’s not as damaging as I’d expected.”

Chris Dyer: ”We had a few little problems on both cars: nothing particularly serious but enough to slow us down in completing the programme we had planned for the two drivers. We have various new components on the F60 and now we will have to analyse the car’s behaviour to try and tackle a weekend that certainly looks like being a tough one, in the best way possible.”

Image (c) Bridgestone Corporation

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