Navarra: Series practice 1 report

Lamborghini on top in Free Practice

Lamborghini led the way in Free Practice for the eighth round of the FIA GT1 World Championship at Navarra.

The Reiter Engineering No.24 of Peter Kox and Christopher Haase was fastest with a best time of 1:36.942. Second was the Marc VDS Ford GT No.40 of Bas Leinders and Maxime Martin in 1:37.054 with the Sumo Power Nissan GT-R No.22 of Jamie Campbell-Walter and Warren Hughes was third on 1:37.065.

The teams concentrated on familiarisation with the track layout and set-up work in preparation for this afternoon's Qualifying session.

First impressions of the circuit from the GT1 drivers were positive.

Warren Hughes, Sumo Power Nissan GT-R No.22
"The track is still quite cold but the condition looks in reasonable shape. Walking around yesterday it looked quite dusty but it doesn't seem to be a problem really.

"It's a very interesting circuit, very busy, very technical and quite enjoyable.

"So far the Nissan seems good, I don't have any complaints at the moment. I'm only just scratching the surface of learning the circuit after five laps, so not a bad start. We'll see how the rest of the weekend goes but I'm reasonable y optimistic."

Bas Leinders, Marc VDS, Ford GT No.40
"It was not too bad, it's a nice track with lots of hard breaking but it could suit our car, we have a good chassis so I think that we should have a good weekend.

"It should be a track for the Fords, it's a bit like Adria in Italy, which for the GT3 was a Ford track so hopefully we can take advantage of it this weekend."

Frank Kechele, Reiter Lamborghini No.25
"We tried a couple of variations on set-up and once we analyse the data further we will have a better idea of where we stand.

"For now, I'm reasonably happy. We are heading in the right direction."

Marc Hennerici Phoenix Racing/Carsport Corvette No.13
"There was not too much to learn from the first session because we are running the old tyres from Portimao.

"The secret is to stay cool and not get too influenced by the times in that session. Once we get the new tyres on the times will improve and we can concentrate more on the two races. I'm confident we have a good baseline."

Darren Turner, Young Driver Aston Martin No.7
"It's OK out there. The ambient temperature is a bit cold so we are all struggling to warm our tyres up, but we are there or there abouts and that's the main thing.

"It's not really an Aston type of track, we are better on big, flowing grand prix tracks and this is very much stop-start. Most of the corners are second gear and that's really out of our comfort zone. We will see when the temperatures are up, if we can pull it all together for Qualifying."

Miguel Ramos, Vitaphone Maserati No.2
"It was fun out there, the first sector is really nice, the second sector is a bit boring because it is stop and go, not very good for the Maserati because of the power and the third sector is also nice so it's OK.

"I think that we will be better in the race. In Qualifying I'm not sure because it is very stop and go and the difference of torque between our car and the others is very big. So on fresh tyres they will be very quick. I think that in the race we could go OK."

-source: gt1world