Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

“I was very happy today. With a street circuit you need confidence in yourself and in the car. The car was well behaved and didn’t take any confidence away from me. There was a good relationship with myself and the car so we will build on that tomorrow. I think we can still find a little bit more but generally I was happy and I think it’s going to be quite a close battle tomorrow and Sunday. The car feels really strong through the castle section in the second sector and I felt comfortable and confident there. It’s a very tight part of the circuit but that’s the place that I felt most comfortable and the RB14 felt strong. I’m sure the others will turn it up a bit in Qualifying and gain in sectors one and three but sector two will be the key for us. The step in grip between the tyre compounds is pretty consistent and fairly linear so no real surprises there. I do remember last year on the Friday both our cars were very quick and we didn’t quite have the same pace in Qualifying, so I’m not going to play it up or anything, but this was all we could ask for today. It is encouraging even if we don’t qualify on the front row tomorrow as I think the race car will be very strong. We are still in the group of favourites.”

“It was an ok day”, said Kimi. “It was not very easy to start with, so during the first practice we decided to switch to a different set up. Unfortunately these kind of changes take quite a long time, but I’d rather skip or lose some track time in the first session and be ready in the second one. All in all, it was the right decision and our P2 was pretty decent. This is a street circuit but not a traditional one. The grip was really limited, especially since low downforce settings are used here. For sure there are things to improve as always, but we were not far from the top today. I think the long run was ok, the race pace looks good. Now we have to analyze all the data and see what we can do for tomorrow”.

“Pretty decent day overall, the car is fast so I’m happy about that, though obviously not happy about the incident in FP1, it was a bit windy and I lost the rear, spun and hit the wall but my mechanics did a really good job repairing the car and luckily it didn’t really affect us too much. We pretty much ran to the programme and the car in second practice was very competitive. We were good on both tyre compounds so I’m pretty happy with that. We look quick but of course you always want to improve. Kimi is quick and for sure tomorrow Sebastian will be there, so we still need to improve but it was a good day. We also know that in Qualifying Mercedes have this power mode so they will be quicker but on the other hand, our car was handling well and when you start to feel more and more comfortable in the car you can usually gain three or four tenths on a track like this, so hopefully it will be the same tomorrow. As for the end of the second session I think we just had a faulty sensor issue so no concerns.”

Das erste Training war besser als das zweite. Ich glaube, dass es uns in der zweiten Session im Vergleich zu Ferrari und Red Bull ein bisschen an Pace gefehlt hat. Es war ziemlich schwierig, eine komplette Runde hinzubekommen. Selbst meine beste Runde war heute etwas knifflig. Das Auto ist momentan nicht einfach zu fahren und wir müssen noch etwas an der Balance arbeiten. Aber wenn wir alles richtig hinbekommen, ist das Auto schnell. Somit haben wir heute Abend genügend Dinge, die wir uns ansehen müssen, um die richtigen Änderungen für morgen und den Sonntag vorzunehmen. Die Tatsache, dass wir in dieser Saison früher in Baku fahren als in den vergangenen Jahren, hat definitiv einen Einfluss auf die Reifen. Aber die größte Sorge ist der Wind. Morgen und am Sonntag soll es sehr windig sein. Das macht auf einem Straßenkurs einen großen Unterschied.

Der Tag verlief reibungslos. Wir haben unser Programm ohne große Fehler absolviert und viele Informationen gesammelt. Am Anfang war es recht warm, am Nachmittag kühlte es aber ab. Entsprechend war es interessant, die Reifen bei beiden Bedingungen auszuprobieren und zu verstehen. Alles in allem waren wir heute nicht schnell genug, sowohl Red Bull als auch Ferrari scheinen im Moment vor uns zu liegen. Es liegt also noch etwas Arbeit vor uns. Ich werde heute Abend an die Türen der Ingenieure klopfen, damit uns hoffentlich die richtigen Änderungen gelingen.

“Ours was a comfortable car to drive today – that’s always important on a street circuit, where you have to attack the corners and feel confident in the car. Today, we had a car that performed well in all three sectors, each of which is fairly unique. “This weekend’s updates were introduced in order to help deal with the circuit’s characteristics, and seem to be working as we expected. It feels like we’ve found a little bit of speed compared to the last few races, so I’m fairly happy, as we weren’t compromised in either the corners or the slow speed sector. “I was also a little lucky on my fast lap, running behind Nico [Hulkenberg] as he began his quick-lap, so I gained a couple of tenths in the final sector. “It’s going to be as tough as ever to make it into Q3 tomorrow, but this is actually one of those races where you don’t really know if starting ninth or 10th is actually better than starting 11th or 12th, and getting a free choice of fresh tyre.”

“I think we are in good shape. It’s been a solid day working our way through the job list and improving the car. There is more speed to find tonight and tomorrow, but we have done our homework. I’ve been building my confidence during the day – which you have to do on a street circuit – and we have the potential for a strong weekend. The track conditions didn’t really improve as much as I was expecting today. It was still quite dusty and slippery this evening and it was pretty low grip in the cooler conditions.”

“This morning was a challenging session. We were trying to understand some new parts on a very green track and braking got tricky at times. But we understood everything quite quickly and completed our run plan in FP2 without issues and with better performance. There is still margin to improve so we’ll work hard to get there.”

“It’s been an interesting day. There was a big difference in car behavior between FP1 and FP2. We made a good step between the two sessions. I was much happier with the car in FP2. Hopefully, we can carry that into tomorrow. It looks like it’s going to be a lot windier on Saturday, so once again the track’s going to change. We’ll try and hit the target and adapt to that if those are the conditions.”

“It was a pretty standard Friday for us. This morning I had a nasty front lock up that happened very suddenly and cost us a run and a half, but the afternoon was fine. Now it’s about chasing the balance and optimising the car. We are getting there with everything and will look to further improve overnight.”

“I think that in this place it is quite tricky to find the rhythm and in the first session I didn’t,” Seb commented. “At the beginning of the second one I lacked pace and could not put the lap together, but that can happen very easily here. I made some mistakes under braking, but I think that the long run was a little better. I think we can improve the car for tomorrow and it should be ok. It’s just the beginning after all. We have to understand what the car needs and we have a little bit of time to reset. Hopefully, it can be better tomorrow”.

“It’s been a positive day and I think it’s going to be a very interesting weekend. It’s a track I really enjoy and with any street circuit it’s all about finding the limits and pushing them as much as you can. The fight in the middle of the grid is going to be very close, but I think we can be competitive. The work we have done today gives me encouragement and I have a good feeling with the car. The main priority tomorrow is to make sure we deliver a perfect qualifying session so we can be high up the grid for the race. The track conditions at the end of the day saw the temperatures drop quite a lot and that’s why we saw drivers making mistakes and running wide. It’s going to be tricky during qualifying tomorrow.”

“It was a pretty good day. We’ve learned quite a bit. It’s been interesting to find out the right aero level, and finding the right top speed against the others. There are a few things we can do to get better. It seems that a small thing here can make a big difference on the time sheets. I’m confident we’re going to get on top of it for tomorrow. I feel good in the car – there are just a few things we need to adapt, and tomorrow should be a better day in terms of lap times. The feeling is good.”

I have great memories from here in Baku, and I am not going to lie, it was a little emotional walking back in the paddock. It was a tricky day for everyone. We saw a lot of lock-ups and a lot of yellow flags. There was a lot of traffic out there, as expected, but it was still a positive day in many ways. We are still not where we want to be. At the same time, we saw some improvement in FP1 and then in FP2 we dropped back a little bit, but it is still much better than where we were over the last few events. I think there is still a lot more to come, so we will see tomorrow what the others do and where we are in the field.

"The first day in Baku – it's a street circuit so it's quite challenging. It was pretty tricky on my side because we only had four or five good laps in FP1. We had a couple of issues, so I didn't run much but I'm pretty happy with the car as we ended the session P9. It was a good beginning to the weekend even with the track being very dirty. The track then improved in the afternoon but I struggled a bit more. We're fighting with the balance and the grip and at the moment it doesn't feel so great. We have some work to do tonight to try and understand how we can improve. It's so tight between everyone in the midfield, so we'll have to give it all in FP3 to be ready and get a good result in Qualifying tomorrow.

“Allgemein war es ein guter Tag für uns. Wir hatten zwei recht positive Trainingseinheiten. Unsere Rundenzeiten waren gut, und wir müssen noch etwas daran arbeiten, die richtige Fahrzeugeinstellung für das Qualifying zu finden. Es handelt sich generell um eine interessante Strecke, insbesondere in Bezug auf das Reifenmanagement. Da es möglich ist, dass sich die Wetterbedingungen in den kommenden zwei Tagen verändern werden, ist das Wochenende umso interessanter. Ich freue mich darauf, morgen wieder im Auto zu sein.“

There’s a very big contrast between the beginning of the day and the end. FP1 was positive with the work we did and the information we collected. It was good to have both cars in the top 10, so that was a good start to the day. We were less lucky in FP2. I was a bit limited with the amount of tyres I had, because I had just one qualifying tyre and the rest were used primes, so that didn’t help me get the best from the low-fuel performance runs. The high-fuel runs were very messy with the traffic. I did a couple of clean laps, but I don’t think we got the best numbers for the life of the tyre, and for the wear, and overheating. That’s a bit of a shame because it started very well in the morning, but this session was one of the worst so I’m quite disappointed with that.

"Today was a pretty clean day! It was a new track for me and I had some good fun learning it. I feel like I got up to speed very quickly and I very much enjoyed driving the Baku City Circuit. At some times we looked promising - we were in and around the top 10 - but at the end of the day we were towards the rear end of the field. We have some time to find, which means we'll be working hard tonight to extract the extra tenths out of the car that we need to hopefully make it a few places up the grid."

“It’s been a positive day: we tried a few new bits on the car, so our main focus was on understanding and exploiting them. There’s a lot of learning still to be done, and a lot of improvements still to be made, but I think the progress we made today shows we are headed in the right direction. “From my side, it feels much better than it looks on the time-sheets. We didn’t get a proper run on the Ultrasoft tyre, encountering some traffic, and I had a little brush against the wall, too, so I wasn’t able to improve over the time I set on the Supersoft. “There’s definitely more to come. Hopefully, we can put all the pieces together and have a positive result tomorrow.”

“Es war kein idealer Tag für mich. FP1 lief gut, allerdings mussten wir die zweite Trainingseinheit nach meinem ersten Lauf beenden. Es gab ein Problem mit dem Auto. Leider konnte ich darum nur wenige Runden fahren. Es ist ein bisschen enttäuschend, da es danach aussieht, dass unser Potential hier relativ hoch ist. Positiv ist, dass wir mit dem Mittelfeld mithalten konnten. Morgen sollte ein besserer Tag für uns sein.“