Formula 1
Belgian GP: Mercedes Friday report
After the four-week summer break, Formula One returned to action today at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. The first practice session began in very wet conditions with Michael and Nico completing a couple of exploratory runs before a ...
Published: Aug 28, 2010, 10:39 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
After the four-week summer break, Formula One returned to action today at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium.
The first practice session began in very wet conditions with Michael and Nico completing a couple of exploratory runs before a heavy shower midway through the session brought all the cars back into their garages. With the track conditions unlikely to improve significantly, the team called an early end to the session to begin preparations for the afternoon.
Despite further rain during the break, the second session proved drier with the track suitable for intermediate tyres within the first half hour. The track continued to dry out with Michael and Nico able to go out on slicks before the end of the day.
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER
"It's obviously a beautiful feeling to be back on this track which is still great to drive. It's also beautiful because I have a lot of good memories linked to Spa. But this doesn't help a great deal with the situation that we are facing here and having a ten place penalty makes it difficult to go into the weekend with big hopes for a good result. The weather might help a little by mixing up the field and so I hope it does not change too much over the race weekend."
NICO ROSBERG
"It's been a difficult day for us as we have been trying to get our revised parts for the car to work. The weather conditions have complicated our programme and whilst we've tried a lot of different things, it's been tough to get any consistent feedback. I've suffered with understeer all day and really struggled with the balance on the wet tyres. The inters were better and it's difficult to say for the slicks really. I was quite far off with my car balance with the dry tyres so that didn't help. So a tricky start to the weekend for us and we need to sit down overnight and try to solve the problems."
ROSS BRAWN
"It was a very challenging day but then these types of changeable conditions may provide the opportunities that we can take advantage of this weekend. Nico's day was hindered by a few car issues which will be resolved by tomorrow whilst Michael was slightly happier with his progress."
NORBERT HAUG
"A difficult first day for everybody with changing weather conditions which we all are familiar with at Spa and which seem to belong to this circuit like Eau Rouge and La Source. It seems that our upgrades can improve the car but we need tomorrow's practice session to get more running with the parts. The weather forecast is predicting rain which doesn't help when our target is to put new parts on the cars. However even in these tricky conditions we can continue to learn and make progress."
-source: mercedes
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Belgian GP: Red Bull Friday report
Next article Alonso takes dominant lead in Belgian GP practice
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Mercedes
Charles Leclerc penalised for Liam Lawson clash; Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman also punished after F1 Brazilian GP
Formula 1
Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
14 h
Charles Leclerc penalised for Liam Lawson clash; Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman also punished after F1 Brazilian GP
Kimi Antonelli: "Weird" spin and car instability cost F1 Brazilian GP win
Formula 1
Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
15 h
Kimi Antonelli: "Weird" spin and car instability cost F1 Brazilian GP win
Latest news
Aprilia: “Marco Bezzecchi couldn’t avoid the collision; Marc Marquez moved in on him"
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Qatar GP
9 min
Aprilia: “Marco Bezzecchi couldn’t avoid the collision; Marc Marquez moved in on him"
How the Racing Bulls pendulum is swinging back towards undeniable Liam Lawson
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
52 min
How the Racing Bulls pendulum is swinging back towards undeniable Liam Lawson
How Max Verstappen beat Red Bull's own simulation tools with P2 in Brazil
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
1 h
How Max Verstappen beat Red Bull's own simulation tools with P2 in Brazil
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe