French GP Ferrari Friday notes

Temperatures: air 24-29°C, track 35-50°C Jean Todt: "Today we worked on identifying the best set up for the car and on getting a good understanding of the way the tyres are behaving, given that one of the options has never been tested before. As we expected, the degradation of the tyres will be a key factor in the race and that will mean we face a difficult choice for tomorrow's qualifying. The cars are not yet running at their best and that is what we will be concentrating on tomorrow."

Michael Schumacher: "The circuit conditions are pretty much the same as they were during the test here before Canada. At the test the temperature was around the thirty degree mark, with a very high track temperature and that's pretty much what we have had today. The situation in terms of today's times is quite similar to what we have seen in the Nuerburgring last week. We have concentrated on our usual programme and we are pretty confident. We have tried the new Bridgestone tyres and we are very happy with them."

Rubens Barrichello: "It was very hot today, as is usually the case at Magny-Cours and it seems the conditions should remain more or less stable for the whole weekend. We worked towards Sunday's race, concentrating especially on the tyres. I did some long runs to check the likely consistency of the tyres in the race. Overall, I am quite happy with the handling of the car but we still have to do some more work on the set-up."

Ross Brawn: "I guess we are not in the position we usually occupy, but on Friday it really doesn't mean anything. We worked towards the race and we had a good long run on both types of tyre, so we have all the data from that. Now we must wait until tomorrow to see what the others are really doing. Both drivers are reasonably happy with their cars. We were in a similar position on Friday at the Nuerburgring and I hope we end up with the same final result."

-Ferrari