29.05.2004 Minardi kept yesterday’s momentum rolling during the final day of preparations for Sunday’s Grand Prix: Minardi qualifying report from the Nurburgring
Wilux
Minardi Cosworth kept yesterday’s momentum rolling during the final day
of preparations for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Europe.
Zsolt Baumgartner and Gianmaria Bruni continued fine-tuning their cars for
Saturday afternoon’s official qualifying session and tomorrow’s race, although
the programme didn’t go quite according to plan.
Not entirely happy with the behaviour of his car yesterday, Bruni took over the
team’s spare chassis for the two 45-minute, Saturday morning practice sessions,
as well as the pre-qualifying run. He then elected to switch back to his race
car for qualifying.
By comparison, Baumgartner had a straightforward day, and recorded a promising
17th fastest time during the morning sessions.
Bruni and Baumgartner then put in solid qualifying runs and, as a result, line
up 17th and 18th respectively on the grid for tomorrow’s
seventh round of the 2004 FIA Formula One World Championship.
GIANMARIA BRUNI Best lap: 1 min 34.022 secs Position: 17th
“It has been a bit of a confusing day in that we started with the spare car,
which felt quite different from my normal chassis, and then switched back to the
race car.
"I especially want to thank the guys, who worked like crazy to get my race car
ready in the final 15 minutes before the qualifying run. It’s going to be a
tough race tomorrow, but I’m going to push as hard as I can, and hope to finish
with a good result.”
ZSOLT BAUMGARTNER Best lap: 1 min 34.398 secs Position: 18th
“Overall, I think it has been a good weekend so far. I was not particularly
happy with the first sector on my qualifying run, but the remainder of the lap
was not bad, and in general, I think we have made some useful progress over the
last two days. I believe we have a good race strategy, so we will see what we
can do tomorrow.”
PAUL STODDART Team Principal, Wilux Minardi Cosworth
“It was a solid performance today - particularly in the morning sessions and
pre-qualifying, our times were very respectable, given the
circumstances. Clearly, the qualifying run with fuel shows we have a different
strategy from that of the teams we’ve been much closer to this weekend. All in
all, we’re looking forward to a productive race tomorrow.”
Chassis allocation: Bruni (No 20) PS04B/02, Baumgartner (No 21) PS04B/01, Spare car (Baumgartner) PS04B/04