Michael Schumacher expresses satisfaction with new Pirelli tyres – Formula 1 news
Mercedes GP driver Michael Schumacher has said that he is satisfied with the new Pirelli tyres that have been introduced for the 2011 Formula 1 season after testing them this Friday at the free practice sessions for the Australian Grand Prix.
He stated that the tyres have improved since the pre-season test sessions. Michael believes that the drivers were quite quick to criticise the new tyre compounds introduced by Pirelli which degrade quicker than the Bridgestones of 2010 in order to make racing
more entertaining as the element of a race strategy would now be more prominent in 2011.
The German added that the tyres were beneficial for Mercedes this Friday which was a pretty good day of testing for his team.
“My first impressions of the 2011 season are quite positive. We learned a lot today, and are more or less where we thought we would be, although it was quite windy and tricky to drive,” Schumacher said.
He added that the team will sort out some of the issues its car has currently in order to score the best possible results for the rest of the weekend.
Mercedes’ Norbert Haug also complimented the new Pirelli tyres and confirmed that he is pleased with the team’s performance before admitting that if the ‘technical issues’ his team faced obstructed them from performing at their best.
“We learned a lot about our car and the new Pirelli tyres on this track today which is obviously quite different to the ones we have been testing on. However not everything went perfectly this afternoon as we had some technical issues which influenced the
lap times for both Michael and Nico,” Haug said.
He added that the team was hoping for some pretty good results similar to the ones they scored during the final pre-season test session in Barcelona two weeks ago. However, the team is going to make some improvements and prepare its car before the qualifying
session and the season opening race that is expected to take place at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne on March 27, 2011.
Nevertheless, Michael’s fastest time was over 7 tenths of a second slower than the top running teams which clearly indicates that the team needs to make some improvements to its car soon.
Mercedes GP looked promising for the 2011 Formula 1 season but according to the current results they have scored, it seems that they need some time and after a couple of races, they might be able to cope up with McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull Racing team.
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