Michael Schumacher will be aiming to equal Ayrton Senna’s record of six Monaco wins on Sunday. But tyre performance might hold the key to success this weekend.
Michael Schumacher will be aiming to equal Ayrton Senna’s record of six Monaco wins on Sunday. But tyre performance might hold the key to success this weekend.
Many observers were surprised when Michelin-shod cars took the first three places and had eight competitors in the top 10 after the opening day of free practice on Thursday. Since the start of the season, it has appeared as though the French tyre manufacturer is unable to match the performance of Bridgestone.
Michelin’s Japanese rivals have claimed five victories this year, courtesy of Schumacher’s F-2002. But on Thursday, Rubens Barrichello was seventh and Schumacher 11th. Ferrari claim that the team was running a race setup on both its cars, but the Scuderia might be worried that Schumacher was outpaced by both Renaults, both Toyotas, both Williams-BMWs, David Coulthard’s McLaren, Giancarlo Fisichella’s Jordan and Mark Webber’s Minardi.
"As always in Monaco, it is harder than usual to run a programme, as the sessions tend to be fragmented with cars going off the track," said Ferrari technical boss Ross Brawn. "Looking at what we did achieve, I think we will reasonably competitive on Saturday."
Schumacher, who posted his worst practice time this season, was not happy with the handling of his car. "We have not yet found the ideal set-up, but I am not too worried about this," he admitted. "We still have work to do to improve the handling. Generally it looks as though everyone’s times are much closer here than in recent races."
"It seems that some drivers were trying qualifying set-up, but we stuck to working towards the race,” Barrichello was quoted as saying. “I am reasonably happy with the work we have done so far, but there is still more to do to find the right balance on the car."
Both Michelin and Bridgestone have brought new tyre compounds to Monte Carlo. But, with only two Bridgestone-shod cars in the top 10 times from Thursday’s session, Michelin seems to have the edge.
Michelin brought a brand new option (softer) tyre to Monaco and competitions boss Pierre Dupasquier said: "It’s quite interesting because up until now the tyres have proved to be markedly different – and the option has been the quicker of the two. It remains to be seen whether this will be the case by the time the race comes around, because the track will definitely become much faster as the weekend wears on. I expect pole position to be in the 1m16s range (Jarno Trulli’s session-topping time was 1m18,915s).
Renault will be a force to be reckoned with this weekend. Trulli and team-mate Jenson Button worked well throughout the two sessions. Trulli took first place on the timesheets in the dying minutes of the second session and was the only one of the 22-strong field to break into the 1:18’s.
“It was a good performance today, and I really want to thank the team for all their work. The conditions here are extremely difficult, but we didn’t have any problems at all,” Trulli said. “I’m pleased with the handing of the car – there’s still more speed to find, but on this circuit, you need to be happy with the car before you can really push, and I was able to do so straight away. Now I want to confirm this performance, not just in qualifying, but most importantly during the race on Sunday!”
Toyota drivers Allan McNish and Mika Salo sprang one of the biggest surprises in free practice by setting the second and fifth fastest times.
Until Jarno Trulli posted the fastest lap of the day with just a few minutes remaining, McNish was set to take the fastest time honours. Considering that it was his first time at the track in an F1 car, it was an impressive performance.
"I’m happy," said McNish. "The car was a bit better than we expected here. I got into the rhythm of the circuit quite quickly, which was something I didn’t really expect. It just started to click and overall it was a good session.
"The strategy was not to do any real development of the car but just to get laps under my belt. We tried a low fuel run at the end but unfortunately it rained slightly and it was a bit hard to make a fair evaluation of where we are. I kept very much off the barriers in the first session but in the second session I was a lot closer. It seemed to be reasonably under control but maybe not as much as it looked from the outside!"
Australian Mark Webber might be a dark horse for Sunday’s race. The Minardi driver ended Thursday in eighth position, three places ahead of Schumacher!
At one stage Webber had been as high as sixth, and although the team was running low fuel and in qualifying trim it was still a remarkable performance at arguably the most challenging track in F1. And the Aussie says there’s still more to come from the car.
"We had a really good day today," he said. "We still have some fuel to take out, which is nice, but also Michelin has done a really good job by the looks of it, as well. If we can do something like this in terms of a trouble-free run on Saturday, I would say we could have our best qualifying performance. It’s likely to be a different story, but I hope we can still do well."
