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Chinese
Grand Prix — free practice
October 14,
2005
Shanghai International
Circuit being new for Jordan Grand Prix drivers Narain
Karthikeyan, Tiago Monteiro and Nicolas Kiesa, they
spent part of the day familiarising themselves with
the challenging 5.451-km track, for the last round of
the 2005 FIA Formula One World Championship. Karthikeyan
and Kiesa enjoyed a trouble-free day adjusting their
cars to the demands of the impressive Chinese circuit
and testing different types of Bridgestone tyres. Monteiro
lost a bit of time in both sessions due to technical
problems with his car. Initially, the three drivers
reported a dusty and lacking grip track surface, but
as it cleaned up, they started to improve their lap
times and were relatively satisfied with the balance
of their cars.
Free practice 1
| Narain Karthikeyan (EJ15B/01) |
20th |
1:38.308 |
15 laps |
| Tiago Monteiro (EJ15B/02) |
21st |
1:39.088 |
11 laps |
| Nicolas Kiesa (EJ15B/03) |
22nd |
1:39.687 |
21 laps |
Free practice
2
| Nicolas Kiesa (EJ15B/03) |
20th |
1:36.644 |
24 laps |
| Tiago Monteiro (EJ15B/02) |
23rd |
1:37.435 |
11 laps |
| Narain Karthikeyan (EJ15B/01) |
24th |
1:37.467 |
18 laps |
Team quotes
on the Chinese Grand Prix Friday free practice session
Narain Karthikeyan
“I had a good day here at Shanghai. The tyre choice
for the rest of the weekend will be critical because
the long corners are hard on the front tyres and we
have to look after them as much as possible in order
not to grain them. We will have to choose carefully
between the soft tyres and the hard ones. We will go
through the data this afternoon and tonight but I am
sure it will take us some time as the two compounds
that Bridgestone have brought are very close. This is
not an easy circuit to learn as it is pretty hard to
get the line straight and it is very important to have
good brakes because of the long straights.”
Tiago Monteiro
“It was a difficult first day for me as I experienced
a few technical issues in both sessions. I had to learn
the track as I have never been here and spent some time
on that. We also tried to get a good car balance but
unfortunately I did not do as many laps as we wanted
to as I had problems. We have to find out what happened
and keep on working on the set-up of the car tomorrow.”
Nicolas Kiesa
“This morning the circuit was very green and dusty
and we were lacking grip. It is quite hard to determine
with which tyre to go for because no matter what we
were doing, the car was not behaving as normal. But
at the end of the first session, the circuit started
to get grip back and we were able to do the last run
and set better lap times. We went into the second session
without being really sure how to start but we made some
set-up changes for the first lap which turned out to
be very good and we did not change the car for the rest
of the session.”
Sporting director: Adrian Burgess
“The three drivers went through the standard Friday
programme and learnt the circuit as well, as it was
new to them all. It was not a bad day and we are happy
with where we are with our strategy compared to Minardi.
We will make our normal choices tonight such as tyre
selection and this will be difficult here but I am confident
we will make a good choice. We also have a couple of
reliability issues we will have to look at tonight but
we should be ok.”
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