Jul 22, 2011
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Usually, there are two ways you can tell if a photo of team personnel was taken during winter testing or at a Grand Prix: at the former, there are the shots of the guys eating hot soup at lunchtime and secondly, there are more people wearing our team wool hats than baseball caps.
However, that rule went out the window this Friday, as we tackled another cold day in the beautiful Eifel mountains. It ended well for Jaime Alguersuari, but less so for his Scuderia Toro Rosso team-mate, Sébastien Buemi. Our Spanish driver completed a total of 60 laps during the three hours of free practice, exactly the same as Sunday’s race distance in the German Grand Prix, the tenth round of the world championship. He ended the day in fifteenth place, having acquired plenty of useful data regarding tyre behaviour and car set-up. That data could prove invaluable to Buemi, who did not record a timed lap this afternoon, when he was sidelined in the garage, as the team began work on tracing a mysterious misfire affecting his STR6.
At the top of the time sheet this afternoon, we find Mark Webber for Red Bull Racing, followed by Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari, these two men being the only ones to get under the 1m 32s barrier. Next up come their respective team-mates, Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa, with the Mercedes duo of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg in fifth and sixth places. Missing from the German Grand Prix is Jarno Trulli, but don’t worry, he will be back in Budapest next week: the Italian has stood aside, as Team Lotus is giving its reserve driver Karun Chandhok a run out this weekend and the Indian driver is also expected to race in his home Grand Prix later in the year.
The weather is always a topic here, as team members anxiously scan the horizon, not gazing at the famous castle that overlooks the circuit, but watching out for rain clouds. It is very unlikely we will get through the whole weekend without some wet running, but the question is when.
Credit: Toro Rosso (www.scuderiatororosso.com)
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