US GP: Super Aguri Friday practice notes

Super Aguri F1 Team got off to an encouraging start to the 2006 US Grand Prix weekend today. SAF1 Team drivers Takuma Sato and Sakon Yamamoto completed their respective scheduled programmes without any major issues, however a spin at turn 4 at the start of the second free practice session ended Franck Montagny's running for the day.

Takuma Sato:

"It was certainly one of our better days so far this season. I am very pleased that we seem to be competitive here. We still found it hard to find the right set-up today and I was struggling through the infield section as we had an oversteer balance issue. But we had good straight-line speed which is vital for this circuit and we made good progress throughout both sessions, so it was a good day."

Franck Montagny:

"It was not a good testing day for me. This morning was quite good and everything worked okay, but we went out a bit early which affected the tyres. So after this it was very hard to find something good for the set-up of the car and we also had a small electrical problem towards the end of the session. I then made a mistake into turn 4 at the beginning of the second session. The car was very pointy and I spun and finished the session there, so overall it was not a good day."

Sakon Yamamoto:

"I would like to thank everyone in the team for their hard work during the sessions today. As the Canadian Grand Prix was only one week ago I came to Indianapolis with my confidence high. I had a very good day today. We completed our very important tyre comparison and I think that we have collected very good data for the team."

Aguri Suzuki, Team Principal:

"I am quite happy with our performance on our first Friday in Indianapolis. Taku did a great job today and set a very good time. Sakon also collected a lot of data for the team following his longer runs and is improving with every session. It is a pity that Franck made a small mistake at the beginning of this afternoon's session, but overall the team has had a good day, so we are looking forward to tomorrow."

Takuma Sato
Chassis: SA05-05
Practice session 1: 14th
No. of Laps: 17
Best Lap: 1:15.971
Practice session 2: 22nd
No. of Laps: 24
Best Lap: 1:14.391

Franck Montagny
Chassis: SA05-02
Practice session 1: 16th
No. of Laps: 17
Best Lap: 1:16.489
Practice session 2: 29th
No. of Laps: 2
Best Lap: No timed lap

Sakon Yamamoto
Chassis: SA05-01
Practice session 1: 15th
No. of Laps: 31
Best Lap: 1:16.116
Practice session 2: 28th
No. of Laps: 33
Best Lap: 1:15.120

-superaguri-