06/10/2006
NEWS STORY
Team McLaren Mercedes drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Kimi Raikkonen set the eighth and 10th fastest times respectively in today's second free practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix. Pedro set a time of 1:35.064 and completed a total of six laps whilst Kimi's best time was 1:35.367 over five laps. Both of today's sessions were run in wet conditions with rain falling intermittently throughout the morning, as a result both drivers only completed an installation lap in the first session and set no times. Running in the afternoon was also limited with the track only improving enough to use dry tyres towards the end of the session.
Pedro de la Rosa: "Due to the wet weather conditions we took the decision to conserve the engine and tyres, so we limited our running to only six laps at the end of the second practice session. Despite this the team worked very efficiently to gain good tyre comparison data. We expect weather conditions to improve tomorrow."
Kimi Raikkonen: "A first practice day where nothing really happened due to the wet weather conditions. There was no use in doing anything other than some set-up and tyre evaluation work as the track conditions were not ideal for detailed results. Tomorrow's free practice will hopefully give us a better opportunity to prepare for qualifying and the race."
Ron Dennis: "An uneventful practice session where we restricted our programme to a handful of laps in the second session when weather and track conditions improved."
Norbert Haug: "Kimi and Pedro only went out eight minutes from the end of this afternoon's session to start working on their basic set-up."
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