Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralph Firman were 16th and 17th in first qualifying as high track temperatures caused the EJ13 to lose grip, making it very difficult for the drivers to reproduce their quicker lap times of the morning free practice session.  

Fisichella lost most of the two hour private test session as he suffered an engine failure shortly after taking to the track and experienced a second failure almost immediately following the subsequent engine change.  With insufficient time to change engines again before free practice, he completed the rest of the day’s sessions in the spare car.

GIANCARLO FISICHELLA 16th    1:24.725  
CHASSIS NUMBER EJ13-04 (EJ13-05 in Testing)
“I had lots of problems this morning and as a result we didn’t have the opportunity to run my race car to try out and improve the set-up.  I was using the t-car and the circuit was difficult during qualifying as it was very hot.  I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow.”

RALPH FIRMAN 17th    1:25.223 
CHASSIS NUMBER EJ13-03
“Once again, it’s my first time at this track.  We had a good morning session but in qualifying I took it a little bit cautiously in the middle sector as the circuit has some quite blind and difficult corners.  All in all the car’s a bit more predictable than at other races but obviously we’re not quick enough.  I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

GARY ANDERSON
DIRECTOR OF RACE AND TEST ENGINEERING
“Giancarlo was only able to do a few laps in the private testing session as he had two engine failures, however Ralph and Zsolt had a reasonable session and got through the programme which included some set-up and tyre evaluation.

"In free practice Giancarlo had to use the spare car as there wasn't enough time to carry out the second engine change, so we had a bit of work just getting up to speed and doing some set-up work.  In qualifying Giancarlo lost a bit of time in the first sector compared to this morning - the track was very hot and these slippy conditions offer us very little grip.”

The spare car (chassis EJ13-04) is set up for Giancarlo Fisichella.