Easy first day for Doornbos at Monza

On the first day of the Italian Grand Prix weekend, Robert Doornbos mainly focussed on fine-tuning the set-up of his Minardi PS05. At the 5,793 kilometer long Autodromo Nazionale di Monza Doornbos drove 26 laps in total in which he set a fastest laptime of 1:24.233. With this performance the Dutch ace was a split second faster than his teammate and in the 'slipstream' of both Jordan racedrivers.

Robert Doornbos.

Photo by Alessio Morgese.

In the first Free Practise between 11:00 and 12:00 hours, initially only a few drivers came into action as all teams tested extensively at the historic Grand Prix track last week. Doornbos also only hit the tarmac some twenty minutes before the end of the session. In eleven laps, the 23-year old Dutchman set a fastest time of 1:25.853 in which he settled himself between the six Minardi's and Jordans.

Also in the afternoon session the Italian squad matched the speed of their Russian/English rivals by clocking comparable laptimes. Doornbos (1:24.233), who mainly focussed himself on fine-tuning his PS05 today, lapped the high-speed track 15 times and finished the day just ahead of his teammate Christijan Albers (1:24.264) in 22nd position.

Robert Doornbos:

"Today was a good day. Because we enjoyed a productive test here last week, we already possessed most of the required data and so we did not have to rush things today. As I also have a new engine for this weekend, we decided to run less kilometers as usual in order to save the engine."

"With the long straights here in mind, we did carry out some experiments on both the downforce settings and the gearbox ratios in the afternoon session. If we make the right decision regarding our tyre choice, I'm hopefull of chasing the Jordans once again tomorrow and on Sunday."

-www.robertdoornbos.com-