Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Wir können noch nachlegen, aber alles in allem war es ein positiver Auftakt. Die Bedingungen waren knifflig, was dazu geführt hat, dass viele Fahrer Fehler gemacht haben. Es gab einige Unterbrechungen, weshalb unsere Zeit auf der Strecke ein bisschen eingeschränkt war. Außerdem hatte ich einen heftigen Verbremser, bei dem ich mir einen Reifensatz zerstört habe. Das zweite Training verlief besser und wir konnten viele Runden zurücklegen. Trotzdem bekomme ich noch nicht alle Sektoren perfekt zusammen. Die ersten beiden Streckenabschnitte fühlen sich gut an, aber im dritten Sektor ist das Auto noch etwas zu nervös. Teilweise bin ich im Rallye-Stil gedriftet und das ist sicher nicht der beste Weg, um hier schnell zu sein. Wir können noch viel Zeit gutmachen, aber wir befinden uns in einer guten Ausgangslage und ich bin überzeugt, dass wir uns morgen weiter steigern können.

Das Auto war hier gut, aber für mich verlief der Tag nicht ganz so rund. Es gibt heute Abend noch viel zu tun sowohl fahrerisch als auch mit Blick auf die Abstimmung. Der Tag begann mit einem recht schwachen ersten Training nicht gerade gut. Ich hatte auf den weichen Reifen einen Verbremser in Kurve zwei und nachdem ich auf die harte Mischung gewechselt war, zerstörte ich diese komplett – dadurch war die erste Session für mich gelaufen. Das zweite Training verlief erheblich besser, aber ich habe nicht alle Sektoren zusammenbekommen – daran muss ich jetzt arbeiten. Im ersten und zweiten Sektor fehlte mir noch etwas, aber der dritte Sektor war schon gut. Das Grip-Niveau war heute ziemlich gering, was den Tag zusätzlich erschwerte. Deshalb sind wir viel herumgerutscht. Aber ich bin sicher, dass der Grip steigen und es morgen enger zugehen wird.

“We keep on setting the time sheets alight on Friday, so it’s nice to see us high up again today. It’s a circuit I’ve not had too much success or confidence on before, so it definitely gives me a boost. I learnt a lot and showed strong pace in every run. Looking ahead to tomorrow, I think it’ll be a lot closer especially between us and the teams that are about two to three tenths behind, so I think qualifying will be tightly contested. But I draw a lot of confidence from today and we’ll look to string it all together for the rest of the weekend.”

“Despite losing much of FP1, I think it's been a productive Friday with an intense programme in the afternoon. Thanks to the mechanics for fixing the car on time for FP2. We completed the tests we needed and the car balance looks closer to the rest of the season so far, which is a good sign after our struggles at Mugello. We seem to be back in the mix, but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what we can do in quali.”

“Tricky day. FP1 wasn’t ideal. Obviously, we have a couple of new parts on the car, so a lot of it was just aero running and trying to understand how it was performing on track. There was a lot of disruption, so FP1 was a bit messy and lacked laps altogether. We tried to make up for it in FP2 and I think we did. I got a bit more comfortable with the car, we made some progress with the set-up and I’m feeling a bit more confident going into tomorrow – but we’ve still got some work to do if we want to be as competitive as our rivals. On the whole, a tricky day but I’m reasonably happy.”

“It was a positive day and the car was feeling good. We’ll go away tonight and look over the data as usual, but I think the car is in a pretty good place already. It was a really hot day out there, so I’m a bit sweaty too! I was surprised at the temperature, and it’ll be interesting to see how that affects the weekend ahead. I think it was clear to see that there’s going to be a close battle for the top positions in qualifying tomorrow – Red Bull, McLaren and Renault are also looking strong. We were able to put in some good laps and improve throughout the day, so I’m confident going into tomorrow and I’m looking forward to qualifying!”

“In general we know that this track is not the best for us but we have been trying different downforce levels in both sessions to see what the best option is. I think we could have done a bit better in FP2 but we tested a lot of things on the car. Some things worked and some didn’t but now we have some good ideas for tomorrow. I think qualifying is going to be tough and I am not sure if we can be in the top three but in the race we look a bit more competitive which I am happy about. Renault also look competitive but we have to look at ourselves and make sure we make the right trade-off for downforce levels and have a stable car. I know qualifying will be tight and there is still a bit of work to do to make sure we can finish on the podium, but I think we will be in the fight.”

“We struggled quite a bit today, but our lap times were better than we expected. The main thing we have to focus on is the balance, because I think there’s room to improve both in terms of performance and driveability. At this track, it is a completely different situation from qualifying to the race and this makes it very difficult to find the right setup. We have plenty of work to do for tomorrow.”

“I think it was a pretty decent Friday. We tested a lot of things that now we have to put together tomorrow, so I think we’re in a good position. We didn’t quite find the sweet spot with the car so there’s more to come from us. We can see the performance is there. That’s positive and up to us now to do the magic tomorrow. There’s not one sector that stands out as all the corners here are quite similar and we’re looking consistent. We know what to do tomorrow.”

“This was not such a bad Friday and our car seemed to perform a bit better than in recent races. There is still room to improve and find more lap time. However, leaving aside the top two in the standings, you can see this was a decent day for us. Qualifying will be very tight tomorrow and it is not easy to put everything together on one lap. Therefore, it will be very important to put in clean laps without any mistakes and with everything running smoothly.”

“I think FP1 was a bit messy with a lot of things happening, such as a virtual safety car and a red flag, so we didn’t really have a clean session, but FP2 was good. It seems like we have a strong race pace and I’m quite happy with the car in the long run. As for Quali, I think we are still missing something to really fight for Q3 tomorrow, so we have a bit of work ahead of us tonight and hopefully we can make another step forward.”

This hasn’t been one of our strongest tracks in the past and it’s hard to say if that’s changed or not after today’s practice sessions. There’s some data to look at now as we tried different things on mine and Max’s cars so hopefully we can find something good between the two that works. We knew it would be hard coming here, the midfield have made a big step compared with last year so it will be tight as the times show today. It didn’t feel bad out there but equally it didn’t feel fast either, so we need to do some homework and find what we can. A circuit like this is just about looking after your tyres as it’s such a thermal track. You need to have a really good balance in the car so if you’re good in short runs, you’re also good in the long runs but at the moment we’re missing a little bit in both.

“We’ve been working on a few things today and I was pretty happy with the number of laps we did. There’s still some work to do on the balance, but that’s what Friday’s are for, to try and correct all of the limitations you have for Saturday. It’s going to be quite hot for the rest of the weekend, so we’ll do our best to squeeze the maximum out of the car in any conditions. If we do our job well overnight and tomorrow morning, I don’t see why we can’t fight for Q3.”

“Our programme was not very different from what we would do on any other Friday, although the interruptions in the sessions made everything a bit trickier. The car felt ok straight out of the box this morning, but of course there’s always a margin for improvement. It looks like it’s going to be very close once more in the midfield so even a small gain can bring a step forward. Of course, we want to be as high as we can be tomorrow, so let’s do our best and see where we end up on the grid.”

I overstepped the limit in FP1. The track was very green, very dusty, which is kind of a characteristic of this track for the first session. I was the one that went off the fastest and had the biggest shunt sadly. It is just unfortunate as it left my boys a lot of work to do to get the car back out there. They did a great job and we were still able to complete most of the FP2 programme, so a big thanks to them. FP2 felt much better and even with the missed track time I felt comfortable with the car. The qualifying simulations and the race runs looked promising which has given us some interesting data to look over going into tomorrow.

Today we were trying out some different things on the car to see how the tyres would react, as that is something that we need to work on to get some more pace on race day. We were therefore looking at how much our qualifying performance would be compromised in order to help us more on Sunday. We don’t know the outcome yet but as it’s a very long run into turn two, it’s potentially less important where you qualify at this circuit as so much can happen going into that first corner and the tyre behaviour is often a bit unpredictable.

“It was a productive day of running and we were able to complete a lot of laps – which is a real positive as we continue to understand our upgraded package this weekend. It definitely feels promising and I was happy with how the car felt, so I think the ingredients are there for a strong weekend – we just need to make sure we put everything together and maximise it. Checo showed some good pace today as well, so I’m confident we can fight for a good position in qualifying tomorrow. It was hot out there, and it looks like it will be all weekend. That’s going to affect everyone, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out. We’re in a good place and I’m happy with our work so far.”

“I think, overall, we’re better than we’re looking. We didn’t get our lap time done on the first lap running on the soft tires in either FP1 or FP2. So, I think there’s a little more left in it. Again, this time, it’s very close down our end of the timesheet. A couple of tenths can move you quite a bit forward. I do think we’re in slightly better shape compared to Mugello, but we’ll see where we are tomorrow when everyone’s going flat out. You don’t need to find a lot of time, but it’s not easy to find that time by any means. We have a few things to work on and we’ll see if we can get into Q2 tomorrow.”

“It wasn’t the most straightforward of days for me, especially in FP1 where I didn’t get to make any actual flying laps between the red and yellow flags. I managed to recover a little in FP2 and in the end we managed to try quite a few things for tomorrow: my qualifying laps were not very representative and I feel there’s more we can get out of the car. In qualifying, as well as the race, the heat could play a big role but, in the end, it will be a similar situation for everyone: all we have to do is to give our best and put everything together when it matters.”

“We’ve been working as much as we could all day. The feeling hasn’t been there, we’re lacking pace – that was quite obvious on the qualifying run. Our race pace was a touch better but it’s still not exactly where we’d like it to be. We’ll keep working and hopefully come up with a solution for tomorrow. I’m surprised to be 1.1 seconds off the other car, that’s not really good. We’re looking at everything as obviously that’s too big of a gap to be true. Hopefully we can come up with something and my feeling and confidence in the car gets better so I can push a bit more. I have to hope for opportunities and stay out of trouble. We always give our best – that’s for sure.”