By Ian lockwood
October 6 2006
Red Bull Racing's Trio of David Coulthard, Robert Doornbos and Michael Ammermuller headed into todays two practice sessions for the Japanese Grand Prix hoping to find enough pace to stay ahead of Williams for the final two races of the 2006 Championship.
DAVID COULTHARD, 1
“In changing conditions, you have got to decide which set of tyres you’re going to scrub off. If you
run a set of intermediates, you lose them, so I chose to save them and run on the slicks at the
end of the second session. It wasn’t the cleanest of laps, I didn’t optimise the lap time on the fuel
level and engine load, but the car felt quite slow overall anyway, so we need to see if there are
any issues with the car.”
ROBERT DOORNBOS, 1st Practice P-, 2nd Practice P25
“It was a boring day actually! I’ve been sitting around more than any other driving day today. We
didn’t run this morning and this afternoon we were waiting for it to dry out a little. In the last ten
minutes everyone went out on the track and trying to find a clear lap and amongst the traffic it
was quite difficult. We have a reasonable idea where we are, Michael (Ammermüller) racked up
some miles so we can look at his data. It’s a narrow circuit here, which makes it good fun to
drive, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
MICHAEL AMMERMÜLLER, 1st Practice P4, 2nd Practice P12
“It was a lot easier to drive the car here than in Shanghai, as I know it better now. The only thing I
had to learn quickly was driving in the rain, but I think it went quite well and it didn’t take me too
long to get into a good rhythm. Overall, we were quite good in the dry and only one second off
the pace, which I was pleased with. There are a number of quick corners here, which makes it
great, though I’m sure it would be even better if it was a little bit drier.”