Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

“It was a good day”, says Kimi. “Things worked out smoothly and the car felt ok both on high and low fuel; that’s the main thing. So far so good, but it’s still Friday and obviously there’s always things to improve. The nature of the circuit is quite tricky because of the low downforce configuration; in some corners, like in the chicanes, you have to use the kerbs a lot to go fast, but because of the low downforce the car is bouncing and it always feels very slippery. But at this track, given the long straights, to achieve pure lap time you have to drive in that configuration. Today we started pretty well, we keep on doing our usual work, trying to improve for tomorrow”.

Das war ein guter erster Tag für das Team. Die Ferrari sehen hier schnell aus und die Zeiten zeigen, dass es momentan super eng zugeht an der Spitze. Ich habe das Gefühl, dass wir zu diesem frühen Zeitpunkt des Wochenendes noch ein bisschen hinter den roten Autos liegen. Aber wir werden hart arbeiten, um die Lücke bis zum Qualifying am Samstag zu schließen. Nach einem harten Wochenende in Monaco ist es das Wichtigste, dass sich unser Auto in Montreal bereits viel besser anfühlt. Wir sollten für den Rest des Wochenendes dabei sein.

“Today I was fighting with the car at the beginning, but in the end I understood what we needed and what we had to do. Tomorrow should be a better day. It was an interesting session. The track was slippery and very dirty this morning. We try to do our best, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But in the end we found the right direction. So we’ll see what tomorrow brings, but I am confident it will be better. We focus on what we have to do. We could have had a better session today, but hopefully we’ll have it tomorrow”.

Nach Monaco war es sehr schön, das Wochenende mit einem positiven Gefühl im Auto zu beginnen. Wir sehen hier konkurrenzfähig aus. Aber noch ist es nur Training. Nach dem zweiten Training steht fest, dass wir noch etwas Arbeit mit den ultraweichen Reifen vor uns haben, um noch bessere Rundenzeiten aus ihnen herauszuholen. Aber das Auto fühlte sich auf den weichen Reifen gut an, als ich sie ausprobiert habe. Wir werden uns jetzt darauf konzentrieren, das nötige bisschen Extra-Performance aus den superweichen Reifen herauszuholen und das Setup über Nacht feintunen. Davon abgesehen hat es heute viel Spaß gemacht. Aber erst an den kommenden beiden Tagen kommt es darauf an.

“It wasn’t the cleanest of days but in terms of performance I think we were OK. Before the stoppage in P2 it was a positive session, we felt like we had good pace and weren’t far off the top four. This is nice to see at this track as it usually is not one of our favourites, we can be pleased with that I guess. The short runs were good and the updates seem to have given us something a little extra, with such long straights here it is always going to be difficult for us. We are not yet fast enough to beat the top two teams so we do our best to finish fifth and optimise what we have. We still need to investigate what the issue with the car was but I’m sure the boys will have it ready to go again tomorrow.”

I think we’ve had a very good day. The car felt good on both new and used tyres. I was very happy with the feeling I had in the car. Everything we tried on set-up seemed to improve it even more. We just need to keep everything under control for tomorrow, and hopefully we can be as competitive as we were today.

“It’s not been an easy Friday. We lost FP1 and most of FP2 owing to a hydraulic leak issue. Due to the lack of track time, the car isn’t yet perfectly ‘tuned’ and there’s certainly room for improvement with regard to the set-up. “Nevertheless, I think we know this circuit, we’ve raced here for many years, and we should understand how to attack qualifying and the race, so our time loss should hopefully not translate into too much of a handicap. “Our expectations here are probably to be on the fringes of the top 10, but I’m glad we managed to put in some good laps at the end of the session, as we did in Barcelona, and we duly made it to P7 at the end. Tomorrow our priority is to push to get into Q3, but for that we need to do a good job.”

“I’m feeling pretty happy after my first experience of this circuit. The first job was to learn the track and that was pretty straightforward with no real dramas for me. I stayed out of trouble and away from the walls with just a little spin in the first session. The team is happy with what we learned today because we evaluated all the different test items and collected a huge amount of information. The car feels good at the moment, but I know there are some areas we can improve this evening.”

"I'm happy because we were able to complete many useful laps today and we will now try to learn from it all overnight in order to make further steps forward. Overall, I think both of today's practice sessions were beneficial for us and hopefully we can capitalise on all of this tomorrow."

“A positive day. We are right up there where we expect to be in the top ten and I’m feeling comfortable with the balance and set-up changes we made during the day. We saw a lot of cars spinning, but that’s what happens with these cars and tyre compounds when you push to the limit. Also, the track was quite dirty and the windy conditions made things more difficult. A strong qualifying performance tomorrow is going to be very important because overtaking here is not easy and I think the strategy options on Sunday will be quite limited.”

“It was a decent day. We’ve tried a few setup items. It was good that it stayed dry. I enjoy driving the track here. It’s always a big challenge, but pretty good fun. We’re working on the setup of the cars – trying to get a bit more performance. It looks like there are some pretty tight lap times, not at the front, but from, I would say, Force India, ourselves, Toro Rosso and Renault are up there. It’s going to be key to find the last few tenths. I’m happy with the car. The long run wasn’t too bad. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

“That was a standard Friday for us and we did everything we needed to do. As ever, I think we can make some more improvements to the car ahead of qualifying tomorrow and I’m confident there’s a bit more pace to come from me too. It was great to get out on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in this car, as it’s one of my very favourite circuits.”

"FP2 was all about catching up after unfortunately missing out on FP1 – obviously, this isn't the ideal track for this to happen, so we needed to do a lot of laps and build it up nicely this afternoon. The catch-up will continue tomorrow in FP3 because one session is not enough to fully recover. We will now keep pushing and get ready for tomorrow!"

“It was a good day for us. I really enjoyed driving on the track. The car felt good, initially. There are a few places we can improve, which we’re working on for tomorrow, so let’s see how we go. It should be warmer tomorrow, with less clouds, so the track should be warmer and the tires easier to get working. I’m happy with the day.”

“A bit of an uneventful day to be honest as I didn’t get a whole lot of running. We had a bit going on this morning and then had an engine issue this afternoon. The positive is that Max’s pace on the ultra softs looked pretty good, so hopefully we’ll learn a bit more from their set up tonight and then push on for tomorrow. I doubt we got a lot of long run data today but at least Max did some good short runs. For me, we’ll take a little bit from today but we obviously didn’t get too many uninterrupted flying laps. But that’s okay, because I’ve driven this track before so I’ll just get into it tomorrow morning.”

“We had to chase balance a bit at the start of the day, but that’s normal on a green, temporary circuit. We made good progress through the sessions and we learnt a decent amount about both set-up and the tyres. There’s certainly a better feeling from the Ultrasoft tyres, which you’d expect. There’s more to come and I’m really looking forward to qualifying.”

It’s a great track, I really like the rhythm and it’s just good to be home. It was a good day getting used to the track, but I have to treat it as just another race at the end of the day as everything stays the same. However, it’s great to have those Canadian flags in the grandstands. On the out lap I looked at the fans and saw them waving and cheering and that is really cool. I didn’t get a chance to put on the ultrasofts, so we will see what they are like tomorrow. We were focused on some other things, so it was just part of the plan. It’s still quite close in the midfield, as it has been all year, and everyone has been doing different programmes, so we will see how it is in qualifying.

„Heute hatten wir einen ordentlichen Tag, vor allem auf den superweichen Reifen in beiden Trainingseinheiten. Wir haben unser volles Potential auf den ultraweichen Reifen noch nicht ausschöpfen können und arbeiten nun daran, die Ursachen dafür zu verstehen. Am Nachmittag haben wir uns auf die Rennvorbereitung mit superweichen Reifen konzentriert.“

“Today has been a bit of a tricky day for the team. On my side, the first practice session went pretty well, and I was able to spend time getting to grips with the track as it’s my first time driving here. First off, the asphalt was quite dusty, but it improved quite a lot through the session. In the end, I was feeling quite positive and had a reasonable feeling in the car. “In FP2 I started well and felt that the set-up changes we’d made between the sessions had gone in the right direction. Unfortunately, on the Ultrasoft I had a spin towards the end – and then, shortly after, we discovered an issue with the MGU-H, which finished our afternoon’s running. “All in all, it hasn’t been a trouble-free day, which is a shame, but hopefully tomorrow everything will fall into place again and we should be able to improve our position.”

„Der heutige Tag war eine Herausforderung für uns. Wir haben zwar in FP1 viele Daten auf den weichen Reifen gesammelt, aber meiner Meinung nach bringen wir diese auf dem Kurs weniger gut zum Arbeiten. Am Nachmittag haben wir uns auf Qualifying-Runden sowie auf eine Renndistanz mit ultraweichen Reifen konzentriert. Allerdings war eine Änderung an den aerodynamischen Einstellungen nicht ideal. Ich kam mit der Balance des Autos weniger gut zurecht.“