French GP: Ferrari Friday practice notes

French GP - First day of practice Jean Todt: "We went through our usual Friday programme, centred on defining the best set-up on the cars and carrying out a comparison of the two types of Bridgestone tyre available to us. It is too early to make ...

French GP - First day of practice

Jean Todt:

"We went through our usual Friday programme, centred on defining the best set-up on the cars and carrying out a comparison of the two types of Bridgestone tyre available to us. It is too early to make any predictions and now we have to study the data to be as well prepared as possible for qualifying and for the race."

"Although I'm not particularly keen on celebrating anniversaries, the fact of being here at Magny-Cours on 1st July means I cannot help but think back to this day twelve years ago, when I took charge of the Gestione Sportiva."

Michael Schumacher:

"This has been a productive Friday and I am quite happy with what we have achieved. The car seems to behave quite well as do the tyres, which probably explains why I have the impression the car is sliding around less than usual on this track."

"I think we can be fighting for the win this weekend. The team has worked very hard over the past weeks and even months and it seems that all this work is beginning to pay off now."

Rubens Barrichello:

"Magny Cours is always a tough place to get the set-up right. I think we have done a reasonable job with the two sets of tyres I used. We have a pretty good idea already which tyre to choose for the rest of the weekend. We still need to improve the package, although I am a lot happier with this new tyre. Now we need to work on our pace for the race distance."

Ross Brawn:

"The lap times we saw today are quite encouraging, however, we have not yet found a good balance on our cars. So we still have some work to do on the cars to improve that as we have too much understeer, which is costing us precious time in the long corners. Once we have fixed that, I think we will be quite competitive for the rest of this weekend."

Michael Schumacher
Chassis: 245
Practice session 1: 11th, 1:16.838, 11 laps
Practice session 2: 3rd, 1:15.204, 24 laps

Rubens Barrichello
Chassis: 246
Practice session 1: 14th, 1:17.389, 10 laps
Practice session 2: 7th, 1:15.605, 27 laps