Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Wir sind richtig gut ins Wochenende gestartet. Die Balance war im ersten Training nicht zu weit weg, insgesamt also ein guter Beginn. Es liegt noch etwas Arbeit vor uns, um das Auto fahrbarer zu machen und in den schnellen Kurven mehr Vertrauen darin zu haben. Aber alles in allem war es ein guter Auftakt in das Wochenende. Wir müssen einfach wie üblich arbeiten und versuchen, uns für morgen zu verbessern. Ich bin von den neuen Autos auf dieser Strecke mit ihren High-Speed-Kurven beeindruckt. Sie sind viel schneller als bisher. Das gefällt mir richtig gut und ich hatte viel Spaß. Entsprechend freue ich mich schon auf morgen. Du spürst die G-Kräfte viel mehr in den Kurven und sie wirken stärker auf deinen Körper ein. Es ist ein deutlicher Unterschied zum vergangenen Jahr. Aber zum Glück bin ich gut darauf vorbereitet.

Das war heute ein richtig guter Start ins Wochenende und es ist großartig, wieder hier in Silverstone zu sein. Die Strecke ist absolut unglaublich mit diesen neuen Autos. Es war ohnehin schon eine der besten Strecken der Welt, aber mit diesem Auto und diesen Geschwindigkeiten, die wir nun durch die Kurven mitnehmen können, ist es einfach phänomenal. Es ist die beste Achterbahnfahrt überhaupt. Wir haben in beiden Trainings unser Programm absolviert und am Feintuning der Balance gefeilt. Insgesamt glaube ich, dass wir uns in dieser frühen Phase des Wochenendes in einer guten Position befinden. Wir müssen noch darauf aufbauen, aber es ist schon einmal eine großartige Basis. Jedes Mal, als ich aus der Box gefahren bin, habe ich den Fans gewunken und dann sah ich sie zurückwinken. Sie sollen einfach wissen, dass ich sie sehen kann und ihre Liebe und Unterstützung wirklich zu schätzen weiß.

“It was a pretty decent day”, said Kimi, “a bit more straightforward session than on other occasions, and we had no issues. Since this morning the feeling had been ok, but obviously at the beginning there was a bit of guesswork with the conditions, as always when you first run at a track. It could have been a bit better, but it was not too bad either. Tomorrow will be a different day, we can only try to do our best and I’m sure we can improve. In qualifying and mainly on Sunday we’ll see if it is enough”

“Today for us it was a bit mixed of ups and downs. This morning we had difficulties with the balance to start with, but overall I think we improved the car at the end of the session. On Friday you don’t seek much the performance and this new engine has a lot of miles to do, so we try to save it. It’s working well and we didn’t have problems. But we still have to do more and to improve. We have a lot of things to look at. Mercedes looks quick but it’s not a surprise. The track today was too slippery and tricky, but I think we can get better tomorrow”. “Today”, Seb added “I tried the Shield cockpit protection. The vision is not very good and I think it’s because of the curvature that creates a bit of distortion. We had a run plan but I didn’t like it too much. I couldn’t see much, but at the end it was fun to drive”.

“It was good fun to drive today, the gusty conditions are typical here at Silverstone and it is the same for everyone so you just have to get on with it. This year’s new cars felt quicker through the fast corners and more enjoyable to drive, I knew it would be different but this is nice to see. The Ferraris went a bit quicker in the second session and I think we didn’t have a great one, we still have a bit of work to do as I think we can get closer to the guys ahead and also improve our race pace. We can find some improvement in car balance as I feel it changed for the worse between practice one and two, so we will go away and look into that now. There was a bit of a drop off on the supersoft but I think that was expected, the softs however seem to be holding up ok, even so I think a one stop race is optimistic. No issues so far, I’m happy about that.”

“Today was an ok Friday. We learned a lot but there is certainly some time to find, judging by the performance last week we can definitely improve in the high speed and we haven’t quite optimized the car yet. The conditions were tricky with the low track temperature and the wind, I had quite a moment at Maggots and Becketts at one point and it felt like the wind blew me across the track. Tyre-wise, I think most people are happier with the soft at the moment and that’s the trend. The supersoft is a bit quicker but it doesn’t seem to last as long so I think most of the race will be run on the soft tyre. I’m still confident that we can fight for a podium on Sunday but we need to make a few improvements to make that happen. Mercedes are very fast but I think if we get everything right we can be challenging Ferrari tomorrow. Qualifying should be a good fight.”

“We had two okay Friday sessions with no major issues today. Amongst the work accomplished was the running of a new floor this afternoon. We now need to analyse and see what it has done for us. Regarding the pace, we need to do some work to find a bit more balance and performance overall, especially in the long runs. This means a bit of preparation work for us between now and tomorrow’s qualifying, but I’m looking forward to it.”

It was a normal Friday, with no problems related to what we had in Austria. Everything was working in the normal way and I was happy with the balance of the car. With the tyres, we were able to get them working on the first lap, and everything with the car felt normal. The car feels competitive in the way it should be, so on the whole it was a good Friday.

“I’m pretty happy with how my day went. We’ve got several options we need to look at now, to choose the best one for tomorrow, but we’ve mainly been concentrating on race pace because we know that we’ll start from the back [with a 5-place ESS penalty]. “As we know, the lap-times are not that significant on a Friday. For the last couple of races we’ve been between 8th and 12th position, so we have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. “The main issue here is choosing what level of downforce you want to have. Depending on how much power you have, you take some wing off to be fast in the corners and defend yourself on the straights, or if you have little power and you want to be reasonably okay on the straights you have to use the smallest wing you have. It’s difficult to judge.”

“It's been a solid Friday overall. Our pace was promising from the start of practie and we kept improving every time we went out. We didn't make any mistake on a day of tricky conditions and I generally felt the car was pretty good. This is not an easy track on which to drive - it's fast and demanding, but also very enjoyable to drive. We have work ahead of us and we'll need to wait until tomorrow to see where we stand, but I think we have a strong base. "Something that really struck me on this track is the performance of the cars: they are so fast and the cornering speeds are impressive. You really feel it in your neck through the fast corners - I think I'll need a really good massage tonight!”

"Quite a tricky Friday here at Silverstone. During this morning's FP1 session we assessed the balance of the car and also managed to make some good progress for FP2. Unfortunately, at the beginning of this afternoon's session, I was caught by the changeable conditions and the wind during my first run and had a little moment off track, which meant I couldn't complete many laps before putting the supersoft tyre on. Having said that, I think I managed to do a decent lap time which leaves us quite close to the top ten – we are not there yet and we still need to improve for tomorrow, but it's all coming together little by little."

"We did everything we had to do for today. FP1 was better than FP2, so there's still a bit of things to work on for tomorrow. The windy conditions don't make our job any easier but, overall, the car doesn't feel too bad even if it's not exactly where I'd like it to be. We think we know what to do to improve the car for FP3 and qualifying, so let's go for it at an always challenging Silverstone."

“It's been a positive day for us, despite the windy conditions that added a bit of difficulty. We have a good understanding of what the car is doing and of what we can improve for both qualifying and the race. Driving the 2017 cars on this track is impressive. The amount of downforce you carry in the high-speed corners is incredible. Of all the tracks we have raced this season, this is probably the one on which I have experienced the biggest difference compared to last year. All the reference points you have built up in the past change and this can put you at a disadvantage: it took me a bit of time to get used to the amounts of grip we have, but I am feeling comfortable now.”

“It’s been a working day. We’re not as fast as we were in Austria at this time of the weekend. We’re struggling a little bit with getting the tires in the window, possibly with the cooler temperatures, but I don’t know for sure. We changed brakes over lunch from Brembo to Carbon Industrie, which doesn’t make our life very easy. There’s a lot of mapping and all that had to be done behind the scenes. That was a big job. We’ve also been evaluating low fuel and high fuel. I wouldn’t say I’m 100 percent happy with the car, but we’ve got some idea of what to do for tomorrow.”

This is a great track to drive, the grip is high and the car is a lot of fun around here. It was not a bad day, but there are a few things to improve on from my side. We were just testing the limits, as, with the high grip, when the car goes it goes quite aggressively. The car feels more competitive than in Austria, and we have improved the balance since then, which is positive looking at what Felipe did. All in all it seems like a positive day. I think it’s going to be quite tight in the mid group tomorrow, so I am going to have to improve on a few things overnight. However, I am confident we have a good car so am looking forward to tomorrow.

“First of all, I want to say thank you to Scuderia Ferrari for this opportunity. It was a really good session. My last test was Bahrain with Ferrari a long time ago, so to be back in a car was really nice. It was a session to just get as many laps as we could. We didn’t make any mistakes, we tried quite a few things, and I was confident in the car. I was really happy with our performance. It’s nice to see how different teams work. I’m looking forward to my remaining six FP1 performances with Haas F1 Team. It’s a fantastic team, so I’m really happy to join them and I’ll do my best. I started this FP1 session at one of the hardest tracks with a lot of downforce and a lot of fast corners. I think to be four-tenths from Romain is strong. He, of course, has a lot of experience and laps to start. I can’t wait to jump in the car again in Hungary. It will also be hard as it’s a difficult track, but I’ve already got some confidence from the car so it’ll be a little easier.”

“Today has actually been a pretty good start to our weekend. Given that this is a long circuit, with a lot of high-speed corners, I think our car has been performing well – I felt pretty comfortable out there. “As usual, the times in the midfield are very close, so it’ll be the tiniest details that will make a difference during qualifying tomorrow. At the moment, we’re still exploring the car’s limits – particularly in the Becketts section of the lap. I think both Fernando and I had a moment during that part of the lap – just losing the rear on the entry of the final section. “Fernando and I have been trying a lot of different downforce configurations throughout today’s sessions. Now I think we have a very good idea of what we should run tomorrow – we’ve done a lot of learning on that front.”

“Initially, it was just about getting used to the car and the track as quickly as possible after sitting out FP1. I got into it fairly quickly. The wind wasn’t too bad today, but even then it still has an effect – that’s always the case here at Silverstone where it’s very flat and open. I don’t know what it’s going to do tomorrow, but if there is wind it will have an effect. Regardless, it was amazing driving these cars here and it lived up to expectations. It was amazing just how fast we go through the corners, especially the high-speed bits. We have a few things we need to dial in for tomorrow, but I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do.”

“I missed half the morning with an MGU-K shaft that needed replacing, but when I did get some running in I was pretty happy with the car. The afternoon started okay and I was happy with the car on the Soft tyres, but when I put on the Supersoft tyres I found there wasn’t any grip. I had a spin and then struggled to get them working correctly. Unfortunately then we had to stop the car on a long run with a clutch problem. We will hope for better luck tomorrow!”

„Es war ein relativ produktiver Tag heute. Wir konnten das geplante Programm ohne Zwischenfälle abspulen und haben dabei verschiedene Abtriebs-Levels sowie Fahrzeugeinstellungen getestet. Unsere derzeitige Performance ist aber natürlich nicht zufriedenstellend. Daher hoffe ich, dass wir uns im Laufe des Wochenendes noch steigern können, denn ich fahre wirklich gerne hier – ich mag vor allem die Hochgeschwindigkeitskurven.“

„Ich hatte heute erneut Probleme mit dem Motor, wie auch schon in Spielberg vergangene Woche. Nichtsdestotrotz haben wir unser Programm abarbeiten können. Wir haben verschiedene Fahrzeugeinstellungen getestet und uns dann am Nachmittag auf Short-Runs sowie einen Long-Run fokussiert. Nun hoffe ich, dass es morgen und am Sonntag besser läuft.“