Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

I can’t explain why the car stopped altogether, but we were able to recover, restart the engine in the garage and, fortunately, it happened at the end of the lap. Today it was not our best day for us and we still need to do better. The car feels good on a single lap though, and as for race simulation, we can further improve for tomorrow. Overall, I am not entirely happy with my long runs, but they were OK after all, and we also were caught a bit in traffic. Now let’s see what tomorrow brings.

Der heutige Tag verlief gut. Natürlich ist es schwierig, im 1. Training viel zu lernen, da die Temperaturen extrem hoch sind. Die Haupt-Sessions finden jedoch am Abend unter Flutlicht und bei viel kühleren Temperaturen statt. Aber wir konnten im 2. Training einige gute Daten auf kürzeren und längeren Runs sammeln. Das Auto fühlt sich gut an. Wir können es definitiv noch verbessern, aber es war ein positiver Beginn und ich freue mich auf das Qualifying. Heute war es sehr heiß und die Strecke verbessert sich normalerweise stark, wenn der Sand etwas verschwindet. Deshalb bin ich sicher, dass wir morgen viel schneller sein werden. Wie schnell, werden wir erst dann herausfinden. Es ist definitiv härter als bisher, mit den neuen Autos in der Hitze zu fahren. Aber ich bin das aus der finnischen Sauna gewohnt, somit ist es für mich kein Problem! Der Trend scheint sich hier fortzusetzen: Es ist sehr eng gegen Ferrari. Aber Red Bull sieht hier auch gut aus und das gesamte Feld ist recht eng zusammen, besonders die Top-6. Es scheint so, als ob jedes noch so kleine Detail und alles, was wir heute noch am Setup feintunen können, sich im Qualifying und Rennen entscheidend auswirken könnte.

“Today was good. FP1 is always a tricky one here in order to set the car up, because it’s so hot and the race is so cool so you have to be careful not to get carried away with what you learn during that first session. FP2 looked alright though. Normally the grip gets a lot better when the track cools down in the late afternoon, so that helped but the wind changed and the way the wind turned actually made the track slower. I think the low fuel pace looks competitive, but probably too competitive for now. I do like it but I expect Ferrari and Mercedes to sneak further ahead tomorrow. But in general it was a good day. We couldn’t really ask for more. The long runs looked like they had a bit more pace so that was probably a bit more representative. I think we did what we had to do today so I’m happy. Let’s make tomorrow a good one also.”

It’s far too early to say what we can do here and conditions were tricky today. We had an issue that stopped us in very early part of the first session; this issue had nothing to do with the engine, but rather with the turbo area. The guys did a good job in fixing the car in order to be ready for the second practice. The day could have been a bit better, but that’s how it goes. I like this circuit, but there’s nothing more special here than in other places. Obviously it’s very hot and this can be a little bit tricky for the tires. As usual on Friday there’s a lot of work to be done to be ready tomorrow.

Das war ein ziemlich normaler Freitag. Zu Beginn war es unglaublich heiß. Die Bedingungen gehörten zu den härtesten, physisch aber auch mit Blick darauf, wie man die Reifen zum Arbeiten brachte. Wir kamen damit zurecht und am Nachmittag war es viel kühler. Dadurch erlebten wir viel repräsentativere Bedingungen für das Qualifying und das Rennen. So konnte ich das Auto im 2. Training viel besser verstehen lernen. Es war sehr eng, aber Ferrari war am schnellsten. Sie scheinen im Renntrimm ein paar Zehntel schneller zu sein. Deshalb erwarte ich morgen und am Sonntag ein klasse Duell. Wir werden so hart wie möglich arbeiten, um die Lücke zu schließen. Ich habe hier eine großartige Truppe an Fans und ich versuchte, ihnen bei jeder Ausfahrt zu winken. Wenn sie lächeln, macht das einen echten Unterschied aus.

“That was a pretty straightforward Friday aside from doing less in FP1 because of the extreme heat. Everything was more together with the car and how it felt on track this evening compared to the afternoon so we can look forward to tomorrow and Sunday. The car felt pretty decent today, but of course there’s always room for improvement ahead of qualifying.”

It was a positive day. I’m happy with the performance of the car on the new tyres and especially the old tyres as it’s quite consistent with race simulation. We’ve shown quite reasonable performance today. We need to concentrate on everything we’ve done this evening and prepare the car even better for tomorrow evening, as well as Sunday. I’m really looking forward to a good weekend.

“I was struggling a bit with the balance today and I didn’t quite have the grip I wanted from the rear of the car. The first practice you cannot really count or read into because of the high temperatures but now in FP2 I lost track time after hitting someone’s T-wing. It was unfortunate and to be honest I’m surprised how much damage it actually did to the floor. The team did a great job to change it so quickly and check the car over before I went back out on track. The other side of the garage looks quite competitive and now we need to review which configuration was better from the two cars and then apply that for tomorrow. My aim in FP3 will be to get as many laps in as possible to make up for the lost time today and then I will have a better idea of our target for the weekend.”

“It was a pretty solid day. It was very warm – the first time we’ve had those conditions this year. We need to keep working on the car. Clearly, tires are having a tough time on the long runs. A qualifying lap is only a lap, so it’s pretty fun. There’s a lot of work to be done for tomorrow, but as I said, it’s the first time we’ve had the warmer conditions this year. There’s a lot to learn from today, and hopefully we can find a little bit of performance for tomorrow.”

"It was a very busy FP2 after not doing many laps in the first practice session because it was very hot and the race here takes place at night... So we did many things this evening – long runs, short runs – and I think we covered everything we wanted to do. We now have a lot of data to go through overnight and we believe we can make a step forward for tomorrow and the rest of the weekend. We will try and do our best and be as well prepared as possible – the weekend has started positively for us and hopefully it will carry on this way."

“We had a decent day. We have some interesting things to look at for tomorrow, but so far things are not too bad.”

“The practice sessions went pretty well for me and I’m quite satisfied with our performance. I am feeling good in the car and this is a circuit I know well and enjoy. I was able to simply focus on performance and getting the information we needed about the new parts and the tyres. It was tough in the heat and it’s a demanding track on tyres so making them last and getting the performance from them is definitely the focus as we prepare for tomorrow.”

“The car was a bit of a handful in FP1 so I don’t think it liked the heat so much! FP2 was productive as we were able to make good progress in the understanding of set-up and we still have further potential to come. Conditions are definitely better when it’s cooler and fortunately that’s when qualifying and the race takes place.”

“It was a good Friday for us, at least on my side of the garage, as Stoffel unfortunately had a lot of problems today. I was running OK and there was some positive news from today in terms of set-up and in terms of the directions to go with the car. We’re 1.5 seconds from the fastest car, which is by far the lowest gap so far. Also, we did 31 laps, which again is a lot of running. “Considering what we have in our hands, I think we are maximising our potential. “I think we’re moving in the right direction, but still we have a long way to go, and I hope tomorrow we can have a decent quali. We need to exploit every single lap we have on track tomorrow morning; we need to do a good qualifying and we need to attack in the race. We’re still not 100 per cent confident that we’re on top of our problems, so we need to keep working.”

“We had a very straightforward day with lots of laps and no significant problems. There was a huge change in the track conditions between the two sessions when the temperatures dropped and the car was not as well balanced in the second session. It feels like we lost a bit of direction on both the soft and the supersoft tyre compounds, so this is something we need to understand and improve tonight.”

In FP1 I got into the car and immediately felt very comfortable and confident. In FP2 I was struggling with the car and we have to see if anything was wrong with it, but no worries as this was only practice. Then at the end of the session there was some burning in my feet. We will have to investigate to see what it was as I had to get out of the car. The positives are getting into the car in FP1 and feeling good, but we need to see what happened in FP2 as it seemed a bit of a bizarre session.

„Heute konnten wir einige Runden auf unterschiedlichen Reifenmischungen fahren, was durchaus positiv war. Dadurch sammelten wir weitere nützliche Informationen, dessen ungeachtet ist aber klar, dass wir die Performance des Autos verbessern müssen. Jetzt gilt es wie nach jedem Training, die Daten von heute zu analysieren – und fürs restliche Wochenende Schritte nach vorne zu machen.“

"Quite a frustrating start to the weekend here in Bahrain for me. Today's FP2 was very important and to only be able to do a couple of laps is quite unfortunate. This is a bit of a setback for the weekend, but we will try and analyse and pick-up as much information as possible from the others, cover this lack of data that we have right now, and try to recover it tomorrow. Unfortunately FP3 isn't a very representative session either, which means we will go blind into qualifying and the race, but this is the situation right now. I'm confident that we can end up doing a good job."

„Zuerst einmal bin ich glücklich, wieder im Auto zu sitzen – vor allem, nach dieser für mein Gefühl so langen Zeit. Was die heutigen Rundenzeiten anbelangt, kann man noch nicht allzu viel sagen. Im Fokus stand erst einmal, mich ans Auto zu gewöhnen und Runden zu sammeln, um die verlorene Zeit so gut es geht aufzuholen. Ich fühle mich schon ganz wohl im Auto und die Arbeit mit dem Team funktioniert gut. Vom ersten auf das zweite Training haben wir uns schon verbessert, deshalb freue ich mich auf morgen.“

“It’s been another troublesome day for me, let’s say. In FP1 we had some engine problems and again in FP2, so very limited running for me today. It’s a shame to miss that much track time, especially in FP2 when the conditions are very similar to qualifying and the race. It’s not been ideal, but hopefully tomorrow we’ll have a smoother run and get on top of the issues. “We’re going a bit blind into qualifying tomorrow, but Fernando did a lot of running today which was positive. We’ll have to start with a bit of a base of information from Fernando’s side of the garage, but I’m sure it’ll be useful for us as well. Our reliability issues have meant the start of the season hasn’t been ideal, as there hasn’t been a weekend yet where we haven’t had any issues. “It’s a difficult situation at the moment, but this is how it is. We knew it would be another difficult weekend and hopefully tomorrow will be better for us. I don’t really have any idea what might be possible for tomorrow – we shouldn’t set ourselves any targets – I think we just need to make sure we have a smooth run, and we’ll see what’s possible.”