Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Das war ein guter Tag. Es war richtig aufregend, hierher an die Strecke zu kommen, da die Autos in diesem Jahr so viel schneller sind. Es ist körperlich anstrengender als vorher - das ist klasse und es war heute auch noch recht warm. Wir konnten unsere Short und Long Runs absolvieren, aber leider halten die Reifen nicht sehr lange. Deshalb hat man nur ein oder zwei Runden auf einem kurzen Run. Alles in allem haben wir alles erledigt, was wir uns vorgenommen hatten. Wir befinden uns in einer ordentlichen Position, aber ich glaube, dass es recht eng werden könnte.

Das war ein positiver Tag für uns. Im ersten Training absolvierten wir erst einige Aerodynamik-Tests und sahen uns dabei einige Dinge an, die wir im nächsten Jahr verbessern können. Dadurch haben wir einige Daten, die wir jetzt analysieren werden. Davon abgesehen sahen sowohl die Short als auch die Long Runs in beiden Trainings positiv für uns aus. Damit haben wir eine gute Basis für das Wochenende. Wir hatten aber noch etwas damit zu kämpfen, das richtige Setup für jede Kurve zu treffen. Die Strecke hat mir aber richtig viel Spaß gemacht und ich freue mich auf das Wochenende.

“I’m pretty happy with Friday. For what we’ve got here we looked competitive. The long runs looked okay but the Mercs looked really strong. We can definitely find a little bit more for tomorrow but I don’t think we’re far off and we don’t have to make many changes tonight. It’s never a circuit where we have dominated in the past so to be close to Ferrari and at least in the fight with them seems positive. I’d like some rain for Qualifying tomorrow and I can try and fight for pole. I know if I get it I won’t start there because of my penalty, but anyway it would be good to start 11th for the race. That’s my target.”

“I think that in the end we ran more than what we expected as it didn’t rain”, Seb commented. “It was nice to be able to do a lot of laps today. We need to find the right balance and this should help us get the pace for the qualifying session and the race, but I still think it won’t be easy to defeat our main competitors. We’ll see where we get tomorrow”.

“My Friday has been ok. It could have been a bit better and we still need to improve the balance, but in general it was a decent practice day. I was struggling for grip this morning and we managed to improve that a bit this afternoon but there is still more work to be done. On the short run it was not ideal on the Supersoft but we are not too far off on the long runs. Of course I always want to go faster and Mercedes are quicker than us at the moment. We need to make improvements before tomorrow because we know that in Qualifying they will step up their engine. I think we need to be at least the same speed or faster than Mercedes in the final practice to have a chance of getting on the front row of the grid.”

“It’s only a Friday”, said Kimi, “and as always, we keep trying different things to learn from them. The tires will play a key role here as usual, the performance will depend on how they work and how long they will last. I felt some vibrations at the beginning of my stint, but that’s quite normal to have sometimes in the car: usually it comes from tires and different sets. We don’t know what the temperatures will be over the rest of the weekend, but we cannot change them anyway and it will be the same for everybody”.

“I’m happy with today. This morning the car was not at its best, but we made a massive step forward during second practice. The car feels much better now – close to where it should be, so it’s another good job by the team who made the correct decisions during the day. We need to keep improving ahead of tomorrow and hopefully we can be in our usual position for qualifying. It was very tough physically today because it’s very hot and humid – a bit like Singapore. I wasn’t expecting this and it was one of the toughest days in the car this year.”

It was a good Friday. We managed to do some good lap times, and I think our long run pace is similar to many of the cars we are fighting. It will be a difficult fight in front of us, but we will try everything we can.

“We got some good laps in through both sessions to identify where we need to make progress, but the car’s not a million miles away from where it needs to be. It’s always great to lap Interlagos and I’ve always got a good vibe here. We ended the day in the top ten; tomorrow’s job is to see how much further up the grid we can get.”

“Today was more difficult than we’d expected. We had some problems in the first session, then a PU pressure issue in the second session. We lost some valuable track time, and in the end we didn’t manage to complete our programme. We tried to carry out the priority items on our run-plan, and we’re more or less happy with the outcome. “There’s still a little more to come from the car tomorrow – some tuning on the set-up – so we’ll see what we can do. Times are very close here, and if it stays dry making it into Q3 is going to be tight. We’ll have more chance if it rains.”

“It was a positive day for me as every time I went out in the car I felt we had made progress and I gained more confidence with the car. It was good that we didn’t see any rain in the afternoon as I was able to complete my full programme. We were able to get faster through the day and I think there’s more to come tomorrow.”

“First and foremost I want to thank Force India because I really enjoyed today. It’s something I have been working towards for a long time and even though it feels normal right now, it’s a surreal feeling to know I have been driving in a race weekend. It’s a huge step up for me, but I have been prepared as well as I could be: I have done days in the simulator with both Mercedes and Force India and I feel that, after my days at the test in Budapest, this was the next step. I didn’t know the car or the circuit and I wanted to learn as much as I could to review and take to Abu Dhabi, a track I know. We did some aero running early in the session, then some proper runs to change the set-up to my liking. All tyre compounds felt good and I got up to speed quickly. I was very happy with the car. The final half of the session was quite difficult: I was still doing fast laps while others were doing longer runs: it’s a short circuit and it’s difficult to find space. You end up compromising your warm-up procedures because you’re looking in the mirrors all the time, but it’s something from which I learnt a lot.”

“I only drove this afternoon so there was a lot of work to squeeze into one session. It wasn’t easy to make the balance adjustments because of the tyre degradation during the session, but the team has collected a lot of good information and this will help us take a good direction tomorrow.”

“Today was a very positive day. FP1 was my first session driving here at Interlagos. We’ve brought a new upgraded aero package for my car this weekend so we started FP1 learning about and understanding that, which generally went very well. “FP2 was maybe a little bit more difficult – we tried some different settings and made some changes that weren’t necessarily in the right direction. However, our long-run performance was extremely positive – one of our strongest of the year so far I would say. “Everything is looking good for the race. We still need to put everything together tomorrow, but a good qualifying would put us in a strong position for Sunday.”

“Not too bad in FP1, but we still need to sort a few things on the systems and the balance. I had four laps on the supersofts with nearly the same lap time, but it should be a one-lap tire for qualifying. Antonio ran a kind of FP1 program in the afternoon. I shared my thoughts with him and we tried to benefit from each other.”

My day was alright. It was my first time here so I was getting used to the track and doing the runs. I have things to work on, like always, but that is okay. The positives are the car is feeling quite competitive, and it is just about putting everything together and we have the time to do that tonight and tomorrow. We got quite compromised in FP2 with some traffic so I didn't do a perfect lap. We have been competitive in the rain so if we have that tomorrow for qualifying it is not a problem.

“It was a decent Friday. We got a lot of mileage and we tried a few things on the car. The morning wasn’t too bad, but the afternoon we didn’t go very fast. Anyway, it was good that we had a dry Friday when everyone was thinking it would be wet. I’ve always loved driving here and did the best we could today.”

"A pretty good afternoon after a tough morning. This morning of course was not great for us with the engine issue, I had only one lap and Brendon almost had no laps so we didn't learn much - for me about the track and for the rest of the team about the car and setup so it wasn't ideal. I managed to do many laps in FP2 which was good, a short run on softs and super softs, and then long runs on the second part of the session so I think it was really good. We finally could seize the potential of the car and work towards qualifying and the race on Sunday, so at least we have many things to analyse tonight and to work and improve on for tomorrow."

"A tricky start to the day and the weekend... We missed FP1 because of an engine issue. In this afternoon's FP2 it took me a couple of laps to get back up to speed after driving a different car for a few weekends in a row! In the end we were able to complete plenty of laps – I was the driver that did the most this session – and we made some good progress. We now still have some time to find for tomorrow and that's what we will work on tonight."

„Das Training hat mir heute grossen Spass gemacht. Ich bin bereits im letzten Jahr auf dieser Strecke hier in Interlagos gefahren. Meine Kenntnisse über das Auto sowie die Prozesse im Team haben sich in den vergangenen Wochen deutlich verbessert. Ich habe viel dazu gelernt und fühle mich im Auto immer wohler. Was den heutigen Tag betrifft, konnte ich zum ersten Mal eine Trainingssitzung unter komplett trockenen Bedingungen absolvieren. Wir konnten heute unser Programm abarbeiten und wertvolle Daten sammeln. Alles in allem war es eine tolle Erfahrung.“

„Nachdem ich das erste freie Training aussetzte, war es für mich wichtig, am Nachmittag so viele Runden wie möglich zu fahren. Dabei haben wir uns hauptsächlich auf die Vorbereitungen für das Qualifying und Rennen konzentriert – mit Short- und Long-Runs. Nun haben wir in Sachen Fahrzeugeinstellung noch Arbeit vor uns liegen. Alles in allem ist der Tag aber gut verlaufen.“

„Das erste freie Training ist nicht ideal verlaufen. Es gab ein Problem mit dem rechten Vorderreifen, wodurch ich die geplante Anzahl von Runden nicht fahren konnte. Nichtsdestotrotz habe ich mich im Auto wohl gefühlt. Am Nachmittag hat das Training gut angefangen. Als ich dann auf meiner ersten gezeiteten Runde war, habe ich die Kontrolle über das Auto verloren und touchierte anschliessend die Streckenbegrenzung. Das Auto wurde dabei leider beschädigt. Das war kein optimaler Tag, dennoch bin ich recht zufrieden mit der Balance des Autos, was mich für den Rest des Wochenendes positiv stimmen lässt.“

“It’s a good feeling to be back in the car and to help the team again with a lot of laps. It was a difficult Friday, swapping from FP1 to FP2, but in the end we did a lot of laps and some high-fuel running. We did a few things different to what I’ve done before, so I’m happy with that. Again, thanks to the team for the opportunity.”