Australia: Friday free practice report from Oz

By BAR F1
March 4 2005

The 2005 Formula One World Championship blasted into life in Melbourne on Friday, with two one-hour practice sessions ahead of Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.

Run in dry conditions, the sessions ended with the Lucky Strike B.A.R Hondas of Jenson Button and Takuma Sato in eighth and 18th places respectively. Jenson had a trouble free day, whilst Takuma experienced a few small set up difficulties that limited his laps during the optimum running time.

Such are the new engine and tyre restrictions for 2005 (one engine lasting for two GPs and one set of tyres per race), that the team has implemented new engine and tyre management controls this year. This resulted in both drivers completing few laps in the first session - Jenson 10, Takuma nine - while track conditions were at their worst.

As with all street circuits that are used just once a year for racing, the Albert Park track surface was dusty and slippery to begin with and, in an effort to conserve equipment, Lucky Strike B.A.R Honda elected to limit mileage until the track conditions improved in session two.

The conditions duly improved, largely as a result of the mileage completed by the third cars of teams that finished fifth or lower in last year's World Championship - B.A.R Honda finished second, so it can run only its two race cars during Friday practice. In session two Jenson completed 26 laps and Takuma 20, each of them working on two specific programmes: set-up and tyre wear.

"It's great to be back on the racetrack again," reported Jenson. " It's still difficult to know where we are in respect to the other teams but I think our sessions went to plan and everything seemed to run smoothly. We know which direction we want to go in tomorrow, so generally I'm pleased with the start we've made here today."

"I had a difficult start today," admitted Takuma. "I didn't have good grip and there was a small issue with the brakes in the first session. I was happier with the balance when this was fixed for the second session. I think that we can continue our improvements tomorrow but there is still a lot of work to do."

Both of the B.A.R Honda 007 chassis used this weekend are brand new and both required the usual set-up tweaks to get them handling to the drivers' satisfaction. The remainder of the day's programme focused on tyre evaluation.

The drivers had two types of dry Michelin tyre to evaluate (a hard and a soft compound) and they have until 0900 tomorrow (Saturday) to decide which tyre they will use for the remainder of the weekend. One set of the chosen tyre will then have to last each of them for both qualifying sessions and the race.

The tyre decision will be helped by the running of overnight simulations, when engineers will use set-up, track surface and weather conditions to predict tyre wear rates over the course of a grand prix distance. There will then be two 45-minute practice sessions tomorrow morning to make any changes prior to the first qualifying session in the afternoon.