Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Heute war ein guter Tag. Die Sonne schien und dies ist eine fantastische Strecke - es gibt wahrlich Schlimmeres! Die Strecke war relativ rutschig, das hat mich an die ersten Rennen in Sotschi oder Austin erinnert, als wir zum ersten Mal auf dem neuen Asphalt dort gefahren sind. Auf diesem Asphalttyp ist es schwierig mit dem Grip. Sobald die Haftung nachlässt, kann man das Auto schnell verlieren. Deshalb haben wir heute wohl so viele Dreher gesehen. Die Strecke wurde im Laufe des Tages von Runde zu Runde besser, vielleicht hat sie sich zwischen den beiden Trainings etwas erholt und in der zweiten Session konnten wir wegen der beiden roten Flaggen nicht so viele nützliche Runden zurücklegen. Ich gehe also davon aus, dass der Grip im Verlauf des restlichen Wochenendes noch besser wird. Die Fahrzeugbalance war ebenfalls gut. Ich hatte größtenteils in den langsamen Kurven etwas mit dem Heck zu kämpfen, aber es ist nicht weit von dem entfernt, wie ich es haben möchte - das zeigen auch die Rundenzeiten. Wie immer gibt es morgen aber noch mehr für uns zu tun.

“It was quite tricky out there and the new tarmac seems slippery with only one proper line to use as you lose a lot of grip if you run wide. The wind also picked up in the afternoon but overall I think we improved the car from FP1 to FP2 so it all felt a little bit nicer to drive. We will keep trying to improve even further as there are still things we can do better around here. It was interesting to try two new compounds of Pirelli tyres. We don’t know what they were but one set felt a bit better than the other but they both felt nice. I’m not sure if they are faster than what we usually use but I don’t have anything negative to say. It is difficult to say if we can fight Mercedes this weekend as they look very quick but never say never and we always try our best and see where we are tomorrow.”

“The tarmac and temperatures here make it quite tricky to get everything in the right window, which makes the car balance quite tricky as well. It’s been very difficult to put a lap together, due to the disrupted sessions with the red flags and traffic at such a short circuit. Those factors, in combination, have made it a very difficult day to achieve a good balance. “We ended up in a good position, but I think we’re a long way from that in terms of actual pace. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do tonight to see how we can improve for tomorrow.”

“This track is amazing! It took quite a few laps to find the flow, because you don’t really see any apexes but once you get into the rhythm, it’s really good. The circuit is also extremely slippery and the rear of the car is moving everywhere but I think that makes it even better in terms of fun! The grip level didn’t improve much throughout the sessions, which should make for an exciting race. Today looked quite good for us and, mainly on the qualifying side, it was fairly promising. Let’s wait and see though, as we haven’t had much high-fuel running with normal tyres, as we did some with the prototype-tyres instead. Running with high fuel was actually our weakness at the last race, so it’ll be a bit of a surprise on Sunday and we’ll see where we are.”

“I think it’s been a challenging Friday out there, for everyone. A track with very low grip, and the wind picking up in the afternoon made things even more tricky. “We managed to finish the session fairly high up on the standings without particularly clean runs or clean laps. That means everyone has a very large margin for improvement going into Saturday. We still need to improve the car quite a bit overnight and make sure we get it in the right window for tomorrow.”

“Today the track was a big but very interesting challenge for everybody. At the beginning it was very slippery, mostly because of the resurfacing, but it is very smooth. It was my very first day and I liked it. It’s good that we have plenty of tracks that are exciting. I think tomorrow will be better as the track itself will improve and we will know it better. It’s a bit difficult to say how competitive we were in the afternoon session, because not all the drivers tried a qualifying lap. Today, what everybody needed was more running to get into a rhythm. The car felt a bit nervous, partly due to the elevation changes, but I suppose that is the same for everyone. We will see the true picture tomorrow.”

“It wasn’t an ideal Friday in Portimao. I discovered the track this morning in FP1 and I have to say it’s quite cool to drive, the elevation makes it really enjoyable. Unfortunately, in FP2 we had an issue where the car caught fire, so we are still analysing to understand the reason why this happened. This meant we didn’t have time to do a run on soft tyres, which would have been good to see where we sit compared to the others in the short runs. Our performance seems quite decent so far, but on my side, I still do not feel fully happy with the car and I hope we can improve for tomorrow. It will be important to have a clean FP3 to be prepared for Qualifying and to be able to put ourselves in a good starting position for Sunday.”

Die Höhenunterschiede auf dieser Strecke sind unglaublich. Es gibt viele Stellen, wo man nicht sehen kann, wohin man fährt. Das ist eine echte Herausforderung und die Oberfläche ist auch sehr glatt. Ich glaube, die Streckenbedingungen haben sich im Laufe des Tages nicht so viel verändert. Der Wind ist etwas stärker geworden und ich weiß nicht, ob er die Richtung gewechselt hat, aber dadurch war es kniffliger auf der Strecke. Leider standen wir wegen der beiden roten Flaggen im zweiten Training länger als erhofft in der Box. Das erste Training war für mich die bessere Session, obwohl sich das Auto darin nicht so toll anfühlte. Für das zweite Training haben wir einige Änderungen vorgenommen und danach fühlte es sich schlecht an. Hier müssen wir ein paar Schritte zurückgehen und herausfinden, was beim Setup schiefgelaufen ist, damit wir uns morgen verbessern können. Auf dieser Strecke wird es nicht einfach, eine große Lücke zu finden. Es ist schwierig, die Reifen auf der ersten Runde in das richtige Fenster zu bekommen, selbst mit den Soft-Reifen, die an sich ziemlich hart für eine weiche Mischung sind. Das Q1 wird spannend, weil darin viele Autos auf der Strecke sind. Das wird ein harter Fight um eine freie Runde, damit man eine Zeit setzen kann. Aber das ist unsere Aufgabe und für alle gleich!

“Today we were discovering a new track and a new venue, so it was very busy! The track itself is a bit like a rollercoaster, with so many ups and downs and it’s good fun to drive. We did struggle a bit today and I found that straight away there was just no grip, it’s like nothing I’ve driven before. And then we obviously had the tyre test which limited some of our running in the afternoon. The grip is completely different to what we are used to so we’ve got to maximise it the best we can tomorrow.”

“The track is fun but it was a bit like an ice rink with the lack of grip and increasing wind. With the track temperature dropping and the wind picking up the track didn’t really rubber in throughout the day so I actually felt better in FP1 than in FP2. It's a new challenge which makes it interesting and I’m sure with another Free Practice session tomorrow the track will feel better for qualifying. It’s hard to know where we really are after today and you can see the difference in times throughout the rest of the field is very erratic which I think is just down to the changing wind conditions each run, so we’ll know more tomorrow on where everyone stands.”

It was a relatively productive day considering how many red flags there were. The track rubbered in incredibly quickly, those opening 20 minutes were really tricky, but then the grip levels felt really strong towards the end. I was really happy with my lap on the medium tyre which we ended P11. All in all, not a bad day. Looking further into the weekend I think we are going to be fighting with Haas and the Alfas again. As FP2 was thrown out of the window due to the red flags there are still a lot of unknows as none of us got any high fuel, long running.

“It’s been a real challenge out there today and we need to improve the balance before qualifying. Hopefully, we can go away and make some progress tonight. I think we’ve already seen that this is going to be a very different type of race this weekend. The surface is very low grip and it didn’t really improve from FP1 into FP2, so I wouldn’t expect too much track evolution. It’s a challenging circuit and I believe you’ll see some teams and drivers look quick on Saturday and then struggle on Sunday, and vice versa. It will be about making the right compromises to perform strongly across Saturday and Sunday. It’s all to play for and I’m confident we can be in the mix for good points on Sunday.”

“The track is really cool and it’s very up and down with a lot of blind spots. The surface is a little difficult to drive on currently with very low grip as it’s quite new. But it’s obviously the same for everyone. I think overall it was a little frustrating today and we didn’t get a lot of good running done. We’ve got some homework to do tonight that’s for sure, but I think we’ll be okay. I think tomorrow will be luck of the draw when it comes to getting a clean lap and managing the tyres.”

It was a really fun track to drive, it is always nice to come to circuits that you don’t have much experience on and discover them. FP1 was tricky, there was very poor grip out there which I am sure was the same for everyone. I really struggled to get a good consistent feel for the balance of the car. It was probably one of the most difficult sessions I have driven in all year. FP2 was very busy with everyone doing the Pirelli tyre testing in the opening laps and the second half was quite disrupted with red flags. We definitely have some work to do tonight, and a lot of data to go through and analyse.

“It was very slippery out there, but once conditions improve this should be a pretty nice track to drive. It’s a fun layout, although I honestly expected it to be a bit trickier before the weekend. The lack of grip was an issue, but I am sure the others were not that happy either. The track will evolve and we will find something to increase the grip – the conditions were already better in FP2, although we ended up losing a lot of time with the red flags. We’ll see what steps we can take tonight to be in a good shape for tomorrow.”

“This place is pretty cool, in a way, but then today there was very low grip – which is kind of a shame, as you go slow. You’re running around and the car doesn’t feel very good. If it was high grip, this track would be really cool. Anyway, it’s been a normal kind of day for us. I struggled a little bit more on race pace, I need to see what’s going on there. It went reasonably well on low-fuel, but it’s on the high-fuel we need to find the problem. I don’t think we have issues that others don’t have, everybody’s struggled with grip, I think we just have it a little worse. That’s what we’ll try and work on tonight and see if we can find out why that is.”

“It was very hard to get into a rhythm in FP2 so there are a few things that are still unclear and will just have to analyse what we have. At the moment nothing feels really good, but that’s normal because the track is still very slippery, so we have to work on a few things before tomorrow to understand what works best for these conditions. It wasn’t as enjoyable driving today because there’s so little grip out there, the car slides quite a bit so it’s going to be a different challenge for us. We will have to tweak a few things on the car to understand the right balance for this track.”

“I think it’s a really cool circuit, there’s a lot of up and downs, a lot of blind corners. It makes it hard to learn, if I’m being a hundred percent honest – I didn’t do any sim work, so my first laps were this morning. Things went ok, but I think the tarmac is quite new which makes it slippery. It’ll get better and better, for sure, especially in the near future – but maybe not for this event. The wind picked up a bit this afternoon. Using the prototype tires at the beginning of FP2 wasn’t easy. It was good for Pirelli, but not for our run plan. Then we had a lot of red flags cutting our running short. It’s a cool track though and I’m happy we’re here. Portugal’s a great country and I think people are excited we’re here.”

“It was a tricky day because it wasn’t an easy track and it was very low grip. All the drivers were struggling out there. We know where we need to improve in terms of the balance of the car, so we’ll go away and brainstorm overnight and come back with some ideas to be stronger tomorrow. It’s a great circuit and the layout is a lot of fun – I just wish it had some more grip! But on the other side, that means it’s a challenge to drive and mistakes will be punished, so that makes it a really exciting watch for the fans. The incident with Max was unfortunate. We’ve spoken and cleared the air, though. I don’t think Max was expecting me to go for a second push lap and likewise I wasn’t expecting anyone to be alongside me into Turn 1. As he had let me through on the last corner of the previous lap, I thought he would drop into the gap, but he didn’t and we ended up coming together when neither of us expected it. It’s been cleared by the stewards and we can draw a line under it and move on.”

“I drove on this track in F3, but to go around here in a Formula One car is a completely different experience. It’s a really nice layout, with blind crests and challenging corners – a fun one to drive. The track was very green and the grip levels very low, which made especially the morning session quite difficult. In the afternoon, the red flag disrupted our programme as they stopped our low-fuel runs, so we didn’t really put a time together: we’ll only see tomorrow what our level really is.”