Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Das war bisher ein richtig guter Freitag ohne größere Kopfschmerzen. Wir mussten im zweiten Training eine Zündkerze austauschen, aber die Jungs haben großartig gearbeitet und alles so hinbekommen, dass wir unser Programm abschließen konnten. Am wichtigsten ist, dass sich das Auto hier fantastisch anfühlt. Wir haben bereits eine gute Balance gefunden und das Auto fühlt sich gut auf der Strecke an. Es ist im Vergleich zum letzten Jahr so schnell. Es ist knifflig, aber schön aufregend, eine Runde hinzubekommen. Im Team herrscht eine gute Stimmung und wir freuen uns an diesem Wochenende alle auf ein weiteres spannendes Duell mit Ferrari.

“Today we did a lot of laps and learnt a lot about the car,” commented Seb. “We had a good feel with it and that is what we need. So, we’ll see what we can do tomorrow. We understood the problems we had in Baku, but here it’s completely different. The weather and the asphalt temperature are not the same as they were there. Today it is still difficult to judge, but the car is very good and we made some improvements. We proceed step by step; tomorrow we’ll have another free practice session and then we’ll see”.

Ein ordentlicher Start in das Wochenende. Die Stimmung im Team ist gut und das Auto ist hier eindeutig schnell. Es war großartig, zu sehen, dass die Upgrades, an denen das Team so hart gearbeitet hat, an diesem Wochenende auf Anhieb funktioniert haben. Seit Baku haben wir bei der Aerodynamik einen weiteren Schritt gemacht. Das ist ermutigend. Diese Strecke bestraft Fehler sofort und ich habe heute die Limits ausgetestet. Aber davon kann ich lernen und für den Rest des Wochenendes darauf aufbauen. Die Fahrzeugbalance fühlt sich gut an und wir werden das Setup heute Abend weiter feintunen, damit wir für das Qualifying bereit sind. Ferrari sieht hier ebenfalls stark aus. Deshalb erwarten wir erneut ein interessantes Wochenende.

“All in all, I think it was a positive day. We had a small issue with a brake connection at the start of FP2 meaning we had to take the floor off the car which lost us some time but we pretty much completed our programme so we can be happy with that. This is not the highest grip track and with the higher speeds this year, if you have a moment, it is difficult to correct without hitting a kerb or going through the gravel which a lot of people have experienced today. The yellow kerbs were definitely a challenge and I think maybe they are not the type of kerbs for Formula 1, the cars just aren’t designed for it. We still have some work to do tonight as I’m not fully happy with the balance we had today but we are also not too far off. We always know that in qualifying Mercedes will turn up their engines and of course the weather here can change very quickly, so it will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.”

“It was another good Friday today and we seemed to be relatively competitive. I didn’t really get to do a proper long run at the end because we had a couple of issues but otherwise it was a smooth day. The surface of the circuit has a lot of grip this year and with the new cars you really feel it. Especially the high speed corners of the second sector are pretty fast and fun. As soon as you lose that grip though you lose everything so a lot of guys were going off track. I guess everyone is trying to find their limit and then you feel the grip so you want to push more and more but then sometimes it breaks away from you. The top five cars were within four-tenths so hopefully that remains for tomorrow and then it’ll be quite an exciting show for the weekend. I’m sure Mercedes will probably turn it up for qualifying but I hope we can stay in that fight.”

“It was a very normal day, trying different solutions and seeing how they went. We struggled a bit with some things, but we know what is going on and we should be able to fix it. It was one of those Fridays, not great and not bad either. Obviously it could have been a bit better and straightforward, but it’s only the first day of practice. I don’t think it will be very difficult with tires as long as we do the normal things; it’s a very similar story as any other race. Now we have to go through everything and improve for tomorrow”.

“I’m happy with our Friday. It’s a fun track to drive and the car’s handling well. I’m looking forward to tomorrow to see if our pace is representative for qualifying as well. Fingers crossed.”

“Everyone was looking for the limit today, so we saw many offs – but tomorrow everyone will calm down. “Our day was not too bad. We eventually completed our programme, despite missing a little bit of track time in both sessions – this afternoon, I hit a kerb and slightly damaged the floor, so we had to change it. “However, we were able to collect some valuable information, which we’ll now go through in detail, looking at everything we tested and what we can do with it for tomorrow. “There are seven or eight drivers all within a few tenths of each other – tomorrow, we’ll find out if we’re in the upper or lower part of this group. “Finally, the weather looks unstable for both Saturday and Sunday. Unless you’re fighting for the championship, some unexpected rain is always welcome. That can go either way for you, but when you have little to lose it usually works fine…”

“The afternoon went okay for me. As I was only out in FP2, I had a little bit of catch-up to do, but I got in to the groove quite rapidly. I had a decent run on the Ultrasoft tyres whereas the long runs looked a bit more challenging on the harder compound. I struggled a little with car balance in this afternoon so there is a bit more ground work to be done to improve the overall package.”

"It’s been a good day. We had a puncture this morning but a good afternoon. We’ve inherited a few things on the car, so there’s some work to be done on it tonight. Overall, though, it’s a pretty good feeling.”

“A solid day for me with no real issues or problems. We found some more speed with every run, but there is still room for improvement and I know there is more to come tomorrow – from me, from the car; in all areas really. It’s going to be a really tight grid tomorrow with small margins so the work we do tonight will be very important.”

“I think it’s been a reasonably good Friday for us as a team. We’re competing in a very, very close midfield – I think one second covered around 10 cars in FP2 this afternoon – so it will all come down to details tomorrow if we’re to have a good result in qualifying. “It’s such a short track that a couple of hundredths’ difference can make a big difference in terms of grid position. We’ll focus on putting everything together and fine-tune the set-up so we can hopefully carry every ounce of performance through to tomorrow.”

"We had a productive Friday. Even if we had some small issues here and there throughout the day, they were not big enough to say that it affected our day too much. We now just need to keep working as we are and avoid any more issues – we have some room for improvement and we will try to fulfill this overnight in order to come back stronger tomorrow."

It definitely wasn’t an easy Friday for us. We were struggling with balance in the car, with some difference between high speed and low speed. I just wasn’t happy with the balance and there’s work to do to improve for tomorrow. I really hope our lap times are better and we can be more competitive in qualifying.

"It's been a tricky Friday here in Austria – I'd say not only for us, but also for many other drivers out there. We need to learn from today. We know we are lacking a bit of pace – but not as much as the timing sheets show – so I'm confident that for tomorrow we can get a bit closer to the top ten. We will make a few changes overnight and keep improving!"

The field is very tight. We are missing a bit so there are bits and pieces to work on overnight. We don't look as competitive as we were in Baku, for example, but that can change. It is such a short lap round here and a couple of tenths can get you quite a few places. We are going to work to try and solve it for tomorrow, as we are lacking a bit of grip everywhere and are just not able to push the car as hard at some of the others. I haven’t debriefed with the engineers yet, but I do think we have a good race car.

“It felt nice to have a clear session this morning and get some good laps in with the R.S.17. Having not driven the car in the last few weeks, I could feel the impact of the development as the car has definitely improved from before, so it is nice to see that the team is moving in the right direction. We worked through a decent programme and I can’t wait for my next FP1 opportunity.”

“It’s been a difficult day trying to get up to speed this afternoon. I’ve struggled with the balance of the car – mainly the corner entry stability and with the rear – so we’ve been trying to solve those issues. We need to understand where we can improve tonight and pick up some speed tomorrow to make sure was can be in the fight for Q3.”

“It was a shame to have the electrical problem with the car because it really limited what we could achieve – just 15 laps, mainly of aero work. The issue ended the session early and we didn’t get to start the performance work. It’s a track that I love so I’m disappointed we couldn’t do more laps.”

“I had a positive morning as I was happy with the car straight away and it felt like the best FP1 out of the box for a while. We did a bit of fine tuning and I was feeling quite confident and comfortable on the track. It’s a shame we had an electrical problem in the afternoon and couldn’t get more laps in. The team is looking into it and the car should be good to go tomorrow morning.”

„Der heutige Tag war eher schwierig. Was unsere Rundenzeiten betrifft, haben wir einen deutlichen Abstand zu unseren direkten Konkurrenten. Allerdings haben wir das auch wegen den vielen langen Geraden erwartet. Insbesondere im zweiten freien Training hatten wir Schwierigkeiten mit dem Auto. Dennoch konnten wir eine Menge an Daten gewinnen, welche wir nun genau analysieren werden, um für morgen die richtigen Schlüsse zu ziehen.“

Es war kein idealer Tag für uns – im ersten freien Training entdeckten wir schon nach wenigen Runden ein technisches Problem. Daher konnte ich auch nur 12 Runden fahren. Das Training am Nachmittag verlief dann besser, wodurch wir uns auf mechanische und aerodynamische Tests am Auto konzentrieren konnten. Diese Daten liefern uns wichtige Erkenntnisse. Nun setzen wir uns mit den Ingenieuren zusammen, um für das restliche Wochenende die Fahrzeugabstimmung zu optimieren.“