Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Das war bisher ein guter, unkomplizierter Tag ohne echte Schwierigkeiten. Auf dieser Strecke gibt es nicht sehr viele Kurven. Österreich ist ein sehr schneller Kurs und alle Reifen liegen sehr eng zusammen. Der härtere Reifen scheint für mich der bessere zu sein. Es ist wirklich fantastisch, die Updates am Auto zu sehen. Die Jungs in der Fabrik haben sehr hart gearbeitet, um hierher qualitativ hochwertige Komponenten mitzubringen. Das Auto fühlt sich in bestimmten Bereichen der Strecke besser an, was schon jetzt ein Fortschritt im Vergleich zur vergangenen Woche ist. Als ich im ersten Training das erste Mal aus der Box gefahren bin, fühlte sich das Auto auf Anhieb besser an - genauso später zum Beginn des zweiten Trainings. Am Nachmittag wurde es dann ein wenig schlechter, was wir uns jetzt im Meeting ansehen werden, um den Grund dafür herauszufinden. Aber alles in allem fühlt sich das Auto gut an und ich bin überzeugt, dass wir es beheben können. Ich werde weiterhin alles geben und versuchen, noch ein bisschen mehr herauszuholen.

Das war ein guter Auftakt in das Wochenende. Wir haben heute unsere neuen Updates getestet und der erste Eindruck ist, dass alle gut funktionieren. Das Team hat mit den Updates richtig gute Arbeit abgeliefert. Jeder Einzelne im Team hat sehr hart daran gearbeitet. Sie haben wie erwartet funktioniert, was auf all die harte Arbeit hinter den Kulissen zurückzuführen ist. Vor allem das Heck des Autos war heute sehr stabil. Im vergangenen Jahr hatte ich hier starke Blasenbildung am linken Hinterreifen, was auch in diesem Jahr möglicherweise wieder ein Thema sein könnte, da es am Sonntag wieder wärmer sein soll. Umso besser ist es, dass sich das Heck heute stabil angefühlt hat. Trotzdem haben wir noch etwas Arbeit an der Balance vor uns, um das Beste aus dem Auto herauszuholen. Das Qualifying ist auf dieser Strecke extrem spannend. Es gibt nicht viele Kurven, weshalb man jede einzelne davon perfekt treffen muss, um es in die erste Reihe zu schaffen.

“We can always improve, but today I’m happy”, said Seb. “The car was pretty good, so we’ll see what we can do tomorrow. On this track it is true that the kerbs can be “aggressive” somehow, but today we didn’t have any issues and hopefully we won’t have problems tomorrow and in the race. We did a lot of laps, which is good, and usually on Saturday we can make a good step forward, so we should be well prepared for tomorrow and for Sunday”.

“It was pretty fun out there. It’s a quick lap round here but enjoyable for the minute and few seconds it lasts. The short lap also makes the times very close. I think this morning we may have been a little stronger than this afternoon and we still have a bit of time to find. We changed a few things between sessions but I think we can find a happy medium between the two set-ups. This morning I felt better on the soft tyre than the ultra and this afternoon I did a better time on the supersoft than the ultrasoft. I understand Lewis was quickest on the soft. It’s surprising but the tyres are all very close, so it’s going to be really interesting to see which strategy people go with tomorrow in Qualifying. I keep being asked about the kerbs; I actually damaged a bit of the front wing this morning on a kerb, but I think they are a good thing. It’s our job to stay off them and at least it’s a track limit. Some of these modern circuits that don’t have walls don’t really have a limit, I don’t think this is a bad alternative and at least it has an impact. It’s going to be really interesting to see which strategy people go with tomorrow in Qualifying.”

“Today was a bit average. I sustained a bit of damage to the floor in FP2, running most of the session with that wasn’t ideal. I think it was sustained from vibration from the inside kerbs, not the big sausage ones. This compromised the feel of the car so resulted in a bit of a flat day. We need to work on the set-up as I feel we lacked a bit of speed through the corners, we know we are down on the straights so we need to make up for it where we can. This may have been a result of the balance not feeling quite right, we will look into the data this evening because at the moment I am not overly happy. The addition of a third DRS zone should help us come race day so if I can get the car where I want it then we should have fun. If the feeling is there with the car I think the tyres will work and everything should come easier. The kerbs are quite aggressive but they have been like that for the last few years so it’s not a surprise, they are the same for everyone so you need to avoid them. Of course they can damage the front wing but if a wall was there you would be in it, so you need to stay off them.”

“It was a normal Friday session”, commented Kimi. “Obviously, we have some work to do to find the right set-up for tomorrow, like at any other race. It’s hard to judge our performance compared to other teams, because we don’t know what the other were doing, but in general it was not too bad. Tomorrow we’ll see where we are”.

“It’s been a pretty good day. It’s a pretty cool track. I always love coming here. I love the layout in the middle of the mountains, and it’s a great atmosphere. The rain held off, which is good. We prefer dry days where we can get good mileage, and it’s good for the fans, and ourselves, for everyone. The car has performed very well, so we’re happy with where we are. The balance has been pretty good. We’ve got some more work to do but, generally, it’s good and I’m happy with it, but we can make some changes to it to make it even faster. I’m very much looking forward to qualifying tomorrow.”

“It looks like we’re going well. It’s been a good day in terms of testing and getting things done that we had planned to do. The car has behaved as well as we expected. So far, it’s alright – we just need to get it done tomorrow, as well. The track is the same as last year. The car is a little bit different, obviously, but it’s been good at many races and it seems like it’s good here, as well. We need to get it all together tomorrow and then have a good qualifying session to get a good position for the race and, hopefully, score points on Sunday.”

"It was a good first day in Spielberg. I was in the top 10 for both practice sessions and I'm feeling pretty good with the car, hopefully we can keep the momentum for tomorrow! We need to be careful because we were quite fast in Paul Ricard on Friday as well, and then things changed. So I need to make sure we keep improving this time, also because this is a short track and the gap to the others is really tight. I had a bit of a moment in FP2 where the car got damaged, but the guys did a fantastic job to repair it and get me back out before the session ended. It's a positive beginning and I'll work hard with the team tonight to find some more performance for tomorrow."

“It was a pretty busy day today. The morning was spent evaluating a number of new parts and ideas, which meant that the real focus was on getting some consistent laps and some good, clean data. “In the afternoon, I was able to get into more of a rhythm with the car, and, while we didn’t really manage to get the balance right, the times weren’t too bad. We still need to work hard, as we’ve seen before that we can look reasonably competitive on a Friday only to drop down the order on Saturdays. “The most important thing is that we got some good learning done during the sessions, but it’s still too early to say where we are in the competitive order…”

“We’ve been working hard today on getting the right set-up with the car and you could see we’re not quite there yet. Nevertheless, we have a decent number of laps on the board and we know what we need to improve to get a faster and more balanced car. I think we have the potential so I look forward to tomorrow.”

“Im Grossen und Ganzen war es ein positiver Tag für uns. Unsere Rundenzeiten waren ganz gut, und wir haben das geplante Programm erfolgreich abgearbeitet. Es war produktiv, alle drei Reifenmischungen auszuprobieren. Ich fahre sehr gerne auf dieser Strecke, und es ist eine tolle Erfahrung zum ersten Mal in einem Formel-1-Auto hier zu fahren. Wir sehen uns nun die Daten an, und stellen sicher, dass wir in den morgigen Einheiten eine gute Performance haben werden. Mal sehen, was möglich sein wird.“

“We were expecting some rain today so it’s quite a relief to have two dry sessions. We completed lots of laps and just worked through the programme. It was all pretty normal, trying the test items, improving the set-up and understanding the tyres. The morning pace was solid with P8, but second practice was a bit more challenging. We haven’t found the best balance for the car yet so we need to improve for tomorrow.”

“Es war ein recht guter Freitag für uns. Wir sind eine gute Anzahl an Runden gefahren, und haben dabei alle drei Reifenmischungen eingesetzt. Wir bauen nun auf unseren Fortschritten auf, die wir letztes Wochenende in Frankreich machen konnten. Die Fahrzeugeinstellung die wir seither haben, entspricht meinem Fahrstil um einiges besser. Heute waren wir wieder im Mittelfeld – das ist positiv. Heute Abend werden wir daran arbeiten, alles zu optimieren, um morgen eine starke Leistung zeigen zu können.“

“It’s been a fairly typical Friday. The balance isn’t quite there with the car so we’ve been tackling that as a priority. We didn’t make as much progress as we’d like between FP1 and FP2 and understeer has been our enemy here so far. Fortunately, it’s an enemy we know well so we have some good solutions to apply before we head out for qualifying tomorrow.”

It was a good session, we had a busy programme with a lot of things to try. I think we managed quite well. We completed all our planned runs, we tried all the things and we still had a reasonable long run pace which is a positive end to the session. I’m not saying that tomorrows qualifying will match today but we have covered many things and we are happy with the work and the results we are getting. It’s nice to be back in the car after missing FP1.

"There were no issues on my side during the first day in Austria. We lacked a bit of pace in today's practice sessions, which we will be working on tonight. I haven't been particularly happy with the balance so there's quite a bit of work to do to get the car where I want it to be. I'm confident we'll find a solution and come back stronger tomorrow."

“I don’t think we really showed our true speed today, especially in second practice when our run was affected by the red flag. The sessions went to plan, but I’m not yet comfortable with the car balance. That’s where we need to work tonight to see if we can find something in the data to improve things before qualifying. If we can find a couple of tenths it will make a massive difference on this short track. Of course, we think it’s going to be much hotter tomorrow and the higher temperatures will impact on car balance again. We will have a lot of work to do in final practice to get on top of things.”

“This was a pretty intense day as we had a lot of items to test on the car, especially aero parts. We completed the programme, now we just need to analyse the data and make sure we put the best parts on the car tomorrow to find a little more performance. “Having an additional DRS zone is a good step: it will be difficult to get close to the car in front, especially in the middle sector, so three DRS zones will help to keep the group together. Hopefully, it should provide more overtaking in the race. “We expected rain today, but none came; it’s now on the forecast for tomorrow, so we need to be ready to maximise every opportunity that comes our way if the weather proves to be unpredictable.”

It was another practice day just figuring everything out and getting ourselves in the best shape for going into tomorrow. I think it was a good day where we learnt quite a bit going into qualifying. The kerbs have always been something here that us drivers have to watch out for as there are some big yellow ones on all the exits, so we have to know our limits. This morning I had a bit of downshift problem going into third and then we lost radio communication, so I just boxed in case it was something but it was fine as the team was on top of it.

It was good to be back in the car after nearly two months, and the feeling was good as I have not driven here for nearly 15 years. The track is short and looks easy however, it is quite a tricky track, but I found a reasonable pace straight away. We focused mainly on trying some extreme solutions just to gather more data and put the car in an extreme window to really highlight the areas where we might be struggling. It was quite strange to drive but I think it was worthwhile and overall a good session.