Canadian GP: Practice notes - Mercedes

08/06/2012

Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg completed the first two practice sessions for the Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal today.

Just one second covered the top 11 cars in first practice - and the top 13 cars in the second session. A total of 1467 practice laps were completed, of which Michael and Nico accounted for 130 laps. Today's fastest times in each session were almost identical to last year: 0.027s faster in P1, 0.152s slower in P2.

Michael Schumacher: "Our work was pretty typical of a normal Friday, however we used the softer tyre this morning to make sure that we could complete our full programme in case of rain later on. This afternoon, we then concentrated more on the set-up and balance. I had a good feeling in the car but it's too early to make any predictions for the weekend so we will have a good look at all the data this evening and go from there. I really enjoy this track so it's nice to drive here again."

Nico Rosberg: "We had a good day today, although the track temperatures were quite cold which should not be the same over the weekend. This made it a little more difficult to warm up the tyres, but we were able to collect some good data on our long runs and have a lot of information to look at. It's a great track here and I'm really enjoying being in Montreal."

Ross Brawn: "We had a fairly full programme today and thankfully the forecast rain held off until after the end of P2 this afternoon. Our tyre usage sequence was a little different to a normal Friday as we were anticipating rain in the second session so we used the option tyre this morning. The engineers and drivers worked through the programme well, and we have some good long run data to look at this evening. There are still some areas to improve on the car but overall it has been a good start to the weekend."

Norbert Haug: "Our target today was to prepare ourselves for the race and therefore we mainly simulated race conditions during long runs. The lap times both drivers achieved looked quite consistent. Michael and Nico posted their quickest times today on the prime tyre as we used the options during our race simulations. We learned a lot about the behaviour of both types of tyres, which are the soft and the supersoft compounds like during the last race weekend in Monaco. Car number seven finished seventh today whereas number eight was 10th, so there is room for improvement tomorrow and on Sunday."

Check out our Friday gallery, here.