First free practice session: Jos 12th

Published on 10 February 2006 by Thorsten Hendriks

DUring the first free practice on the Indonesian Sentul circuit Jos Verstappen clocked a 12th time, two seconds behind fastest of the day, Team Ireland. Team France and their direct competitor Team Switzerland were stuck on a respectively 9th and 7th time.

"It is not as smooth as two weeks ago in Durban", Jos tells us. "Ten minutes before the start of the training it started to rain very heavily. It went allright in the beginning. We maintained second fastest for a long time. Then it started to get dry and the times got faster. We have quite a bit of understeer and at the end of the training the tyres were that worn that we were not able to set a faster time. At that point it started to rain again. We do have a problem with the tyres. They wear very fast during rain but it will be even worse when it is dry. But again, it is a problem for everyone."

The result of the first free practice, including the number of laps driven:

1  IRELAND        1'28.458   16    
2  INDONESIA      1'29.006   20    
3  GREAT BRITAIN  1'29.028   20    
4  PORTUGAL       1'29.372   18    
5  AUSTRALIA      1'29.551   28    
6  CANADA         1'29.737   29    
7  SWITZERLAND    1'30.166   18    
8  SOUTH AFRICA   1'30.205   25    
9  FRANCE         1'30.295   10    
10 NEW ZEALAND    1'30.385   30    
11 JAPAN          1'30.444   25    
12 NETHERLANDS    1'30.517   20    
13 BRAZIL         1'30.571   27    
14 GERMANY        1'30.610   21    
15 MEXICO         1'30.730   20    
16 CZECH REPUBLIC 1'30.801    6    
17 MALAYSIA       1'31.308   23    
18 INDIA          1'31.393   29    
19 LEBANON        1'31.822   28    
20 CHINA          1'32.963   28    
21 USA            1'33.459   16    
22 AUSTRIA        1'34.518   10    
23 ITALY          1'37.191    5    

Thorsten Hendriks