French GP: Williams Friday practice notes

Today's two free practice sessions for the final French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours ran smoothly as the AT&T Williams team carried out their preparations for qualifying and the race. Nico Rosberg and Alex Wurz piloted the two FW29s, as Kazuki Nakajima ...

Today's two free practice sessions for the final French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours ran smoothly as the AT&T Williams team carried out their preparations for qualifying and the race. Nico Rosberg and Alex Wurz piloted the two FW29s, as Kazuki Nakajima concentrates on his GP2 commitments following F1's return to Europe. The pair both reported positively on the day's work which saw them set competitive lap times in both sessions.

Nico Rosberg:

"I didn't feel very good about my first runs out on the track but we managed to improve the setup quite a lot today. We discovered some interesting things and tyre-wise we found some good results as well. As is usual this season, it's not immediately obvious how we'll work the two tyres, but we will go through that this evening."

"It's a lot of fun to drive on this track because of the new tarmac which gives it a lot more grip. My general feeling today is positive even if there are still some things we need to improve for tomorrow.

Alex Wurz:

"We had a very interesting Friday session and ran through the programme according to plan, the only shame is that there were some yellow flags out when I was on my quickest lap. Now we have to go through the information to improve our set-up and make the correct tyre choice. The circuit was ok today, but just a little slippery. That's like every other venue on a Friday though and it provided a good foundation for consistent work."

Sam Michael, Technical Director:

"A positive day today in which the engineers and drivers carried out the standard Friday programme, working on race set-up. In addition to that, we went through all the normal checks, namely cooling, brakes and systems. All of the new performance and reliability components that we have here ran fine. Now we'll work on qualifying set-up for tomorrow."

Nico Rosberg
Chassis/engine: FW29-05 / H125
Practice session 1: 1:16.214, 4th, 24 laps
Practice session 2: 1:16.003, 7th, 39 laps

Alex Wurz
Chassis/engine: FW29-04 / H117
Practice session 1: 1:16.407, 8th, 23 laps
Practice session 2: 1:16.260, 13th, 38 laps