US GP Friday Williams notes

The BMW WilliamsF1 Team used today's free practice sessions mainly to become familiar with the Brickyard, Ralf Schumacher being 6th and Jenson Button 8th respectively.

Ralf Schumacher
"The Americans have prepared a very good track for Formula One here. It's something completely new to us, driving on the banking is particularly exciting. Today, we tried all we wanted for the set-up of the car but we've still some work to do. One small observation, the point where the cars have to slow down in the pit-lane should, in my opinion, be moved backwards. At present we are running at full throttle almost to the Ferrari garage and this is too dangerous."

1Jenson Button
"I think it's a great circuit even if the slow corners are a little bit difficult. Never having been on any kind of banking before, that part of the track is very interesting for me. At the point where the track changes from the oval to the road course my car is quite twitchy and it's a bit scary. Due to the fact that the infield section is very slow we have to run more wing and therefore the speed on the straights is not as high as we could achieve." Patrick Head
"It's been an interesting day, we've run a variety of wing levels and got quite a lot of information about the track and the tyres. This morning we had a technical problem on Ralf's car - which we think we have under control now - that caused us to change an upright. Both the drivers are making positive comments about the track. The problem is that because it mixes a part of the oval with a very tight infield it forces us to run more wing with high drag than is ideal for the banking section."

Dr Mario Theissen
"We've prepared very carefully for this race and we were not at all surprised by today's first running. The question was how would the oil system behave under the G-force of the banking, and our simulations have explained it very precisely. We didn't experience any problem with it and we have coped very well with an unusual situation, without having run even one day of testing on this type of track. We are excited by this track, by the great facilities and the cute atmosphere here in Indianapolis. The question is now: will it rain tomorrow?"