Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

It’s been a good day again and with the heat and the wind it is not easy to find a perfect balance around the whole lap but overall I would say it was a positive day. There are still things to improve and look into for tomorrow, tyre wise and a bit of balance tuning, plus I think it will be even more windy which is a challenge for everyone in these cars. I am pretty happy with the start of the weekend but tomorrow is a different day and we have to see whether we can do it in qualifying when it counts.

A reasonable first day back in the car. I think we started where we left off in testing, which is a good thing. The car has improved in some areas, which is positive, but other areas have got a little bit worse. It’s been a tricky day to put it all together but on the whole I’m happy. Here and there we’ve got some work to do for tomorrow, but if we can put it together, hopefully we can be competitive. We seem to be very close to AlphaTauri, Ferrari and other cars, so tomorrow will definitely be tight, but we’ll see what we can do.

Das Auto war noch nicht da, wo wir es an diesem Wochenende haben wollen. Es sieht besser aus, aber es ist noch immer nicht perfekt. Wir arbeiten jedoch so hart wir können daran. Wir gingen davon, dass Red Bull so schnell sein würde und wir wissen, dass sie aktuell vorne liegen. McLaren sieht ebenfalls klasse aus und es ist super, dass sie einen Schritt nach vorne gemacht haben. Jetzt wird es interessant zu sehen, wie die Long Runs ausfallen. Alles kommt auf die Stabilität an, man möchte ein stabiles Auto haben, damit die Reifen lange halten. Das wird hier bei diesen Bedingungen und bei diesem Wind der Schlüssel sein. [Zur Wettervorhersage mit einem windigen Sonntag:] Das ist nicht besonders gut für uns! Das Heck ist jetzt schon nicht stabil, aber es wird für alle gleich sein – für die einen ein bisschen mehr, für die anderen ein bisschen weniger. Wer das Zuhause nachvollziehen möchte: Wenn man auf eine Kurve zufährt und das Heck ausbricht, versucht man, den Wendepunkt zu finden. Dieser war mit mehr Abtrieb am Auto weiter entfernt, jetzt bricht es viel schneller als normal aus. Die verlorene Performance durch die Reifen ist dabei keine Hilfe, aber wir werden heute Abend daran arbeiten und versuchen, einen Weg zu finden.

Today we had very different conditions in the first and second sessions. In FP1 everything felt fairly normal and going into FP2 the conditions changed quite a bit in terms of wind and obviously track temperature. It made the car and the balance trickier, and it brought the field together. We were surprised with how tight the short runs were in terms of performance. Every lap I do with the car I get to understand it a bit better, how it behaves and how it adapts to the changing conditions. It takes some time, so it was important for me to have a clean Friday and complete our programme. Tomorrow it could be a different story again, with different conditions, especially the wind, so we need to take it step by step, building up to Qualifying.

Das Auto fühlte sich besser als bei den Testfahrten an. Aber ich hatte das Gefühl, dass die Fahrzeugbalance noch immer nicht ganz stimmt. Alles in allem war es ein reibungsloser Tag ohne große Probleme. An erster Stelle steht für mich, dass wir noch viel zu tun haben, wenn wir an diesem Wochenende um die Pole kämpfen möchten. Einer der wichtigsten Punkte, an denen wir nach den Testfahrten arbeiten wollten, war die unbeständige Balance, besonders am Heck. Mit Blick auf die Abstimmung ist es besser geworden, das Auto fühlt sich besser an, aber es ist noch nicht ganz dort, wo wir es gerne hätten. Heute Abend und morgen Vormittag bleibt uns noch Zeit, um daran zu arbeiten und es zu lösen. Der letzte Long Run, den wir gefahren sind, war ziemlich uneinheitlich und ich bekam keine guten Runden zusammen. Das Auto fühlte sich zeitweise unfahrbar an. Aber es ist erst Freitag und dafür sind die Trainings da. Wir mischen definitiv mit. McLaren sah heute sehr stark aus, ebenso wie Red Bull, bei denen wir das erwartet hatten. Ich glaube, dass auch wir dabei sind. Wir sind im Moment nicht die Schnellsten, aber wir liegen nicht weit dahinter. Warten wir ab, wie es morgen läuft.

I thought having an hour session instead of 90 minutes meant it would be a bit easier, with less time on track – but it was pretty chaotic actually. You feel the half-hour. It goes quick. I think it was quite fortunate that we were here a couple of weeks ago, so we could hit the ground running. I think you need to make the most of that track time. “I’m still getting there, I still want to find a few things in the car and obviously within myself. In FP2 I made some inroads, but hopefully I’ll find another step tomorrow to get more where I want to be.

It’s been a great day – I’ve experienced my first practice sessions in the car as a Formula 1 driver and it’s really exciting. I think my passion has really shone through today and I’m looking forward to showing my full potential behind the wheel tomorrow in qualifying. We’ve got great pace this weekend as a team and I’m keen to see how I perform tomorrow in my first F1 qualifying session. I’m still learning a lot in the car and it’s obviously only my first race weekend so I’m keen to not put too much pressure on myself but I’m looking forward to getting out on track for my first race and seeing what we can do.

It was great to be back in the car today and I’m excited to get racing again. Today was the first real indication of everyone’s performance and you can see that the middle of the grid is very close and competitive. It was a little tricky on track with the high winds - a bit like it was in testing at times. Today’s practice sessions also reminded me just how important it is to get the little details right, so we will work hard tonight and go over all the data to find improvements where we can.

I think it’s been a good start to the weekend – the car felt strong in both sessions and I’m happy with it. We didn’t quite put it together this evening, on our fast lap, but overall, I think there are a lot of positives to take-away from today and I’m excited now to see what we can do in qualifying tomorrow. The long run with high fuel, that we completed in preparation for the race, felt strong so I think there are some good signs but it’s obviously only the first day, so we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’ll fine-tune everything tonight with the engineers and I think we’ll be in a good position for tomorrow. I hope that we can get into Q3 in qualifying – that’s our target – and if we manage that we should be in a position to fight for some good points come race day.

It feels great to finally get into a race weekend and I’m pleased so far with how things are going. I’m settling in well and taking some steps forwards. If I were to summarize today, I’ve got some work to do on the short runs as over one lap I don’t quite feel the car is within me just yet and I still have to think about what the car is doing, but in the long runs I’m more comfortable and I think the pace is there so that’s positive. I think we have some work to do on the soft tyre as there is also room for improvement there, but the car is performing well, we have good pace and tomorrow it will be pretty close in qualifying so we need to make sure we get it right and have a good start to the season.

It’s good to be back in the car again in preparation for a race weekend. I think we’ve had a solid day as we made an improvement from FP1 to FP2. We’ve discovered a lot of things between now and testing, so it was good to carry that on during today’s practice. We still need to work hard and find more details, though, and there’s certainly more potential to unlock from the car. It’s only Friday and we know tomorrow is when it counts. I quite enjoyed the shorter practice sessions. It means you have to focus a lot more on each run as every bit of track time counts.

Today has been a good day and maybe we didn’t expect to be as competitive. Though it’s still very early days for now, FP1 was positive on my side and FP2 a bit less. I’ve been struggling a little bit with the car rear end and didn’t manage to finish the lap I wanted to, but even though overall there’s still a lot of work to do I can feel there’s a lot of motivation in the team and I can see and feel the improvements that have been made since last year. This is good for now. Tomorrow will be the day when we’ll know exactly where we are compared to the others as this is when everyone will push to the limit; everything will be clear in qualifying. Even though we expect the usual cars will still be at the front, the field is very very tight and I think qualifying tomorrow will be very tight too but this is exciting and this is what we like as drivers to try and make the difference.

It was a good start to build on the positive feeling we had after testing. Today’s conditions were quite different, it was way hotter in the day, but we are still happy with our pace in both the short and long runs. The field looks really tight, so we will need to put everything together to gain places in qualifying. The shorter practice sessions didn’t really affect us much: in the end, we spent a lot of time in the garage in FP1 in the old system anyway so now there is a bit more action on track. We now need to go and find another bit of time with the engineers and get ready for qualifying: the target is to get into Q2 and then see what we are able to fight for.

It’s very busy with less time in the practice sessions, but we were able to get a lot out of it. Every lap helps me get more used to the car and I’m able to find more of a rhythm. I’m still trying a lot of things and learning as I go, so I’m looking forward to going over the data and coming back tomorrow with the insights we have gained. The car was really promising in some corners and less so in others, but that’s normal at this stage of the season. We will work tonight to find a more consistent balance. As you can see, the midfield is very tight and everyone is learning quickly, but I hope we will be a factor.

It was fantastic to be back in a free practice session today in Formula 1. You feel the extra adrenaline with the traffic and everything going on around you; it’s very different to testing. It felt good and I felt theracing spirit each lap, which I enjoyed. We got through our programme in the first session in very hot conditions and then some long runs this evening as the track cooled for FP2. We do still need to fine tune some of the car setup and analyse the data a bit more, but, overall, I’m happy with my day.

A regular first day in which we were able to try various things. Even though the conditions were quite different from what we experienced in testing, the feel of the car was similar, which allowed us to take up where we left off two weeks ago. We had a solid start and were able to work on the set-up. Of course, losing some time because of the incident was not ideal, but we have already so much data from testing that it wasn’t a big setback. We’re looking forward to seeing where we stand tomorrow: we still have to refine a few things tonight but we should be ok.

It was obviously tricky conditions today and I think the track temperature was up at about 48 degrees at some points in FP1, which is incredibly hot. FP2 felt pretty good and our high fuel pace was better than expected even with these gusty winds, so I was pleasantly surprised by that. Equally the wind is changing so much at the moment, which affects everybody a huge amount, but I believe our car is more sensitive to these changes. Fingers crossed it is either calm or in a favourable direction tomorrow and Sunday. I think it will be a long and tricky race, but I am looking forward to it.

FP1 was in really hot conditions, which was something I hadn’t really experienced yet. It was cooking the tires up, and obviously the cockpit as well. But it was good for learning – understanding how the car behaves in those conditions. Moving into FP2, we knew the conditions would be completely different. Unfortunately, the wind also changed, it was something that everybody had to get used to and some people were struggling with it – so were we. Once we got the info on how to approach the corners everything then seemed a bit better. The long run was also interesting for us, and it was more mileage for me really. I felt comfortable in the car, which is a good sign and shows that we did enough work to prepare myself to get in and be comfortable. I know there’s a lot to improve from my side still, as a driver I know I have the tools to improve the lap time. I’ll be working hard on myself to keep improving and keep learning.

It was a difficult one today. It was very tricky, and I was struggling to find the right balance with the car. We had different issues in different practice sessions. FP1 was one thing and we tried to solve it and went too far the other way. I wasn’t satisfied in FP2 on the low or high fuel, so we have a lot of work to do tonight. We need to dig into the data and see what we can find.

It was very special for me to take part in my first FP1 and FP2 sessions. That alone was very positive. On the technical side the day was quite challenging. There’s been a lot of wind around, and it wasn’t very consistent. These cars, compared to Formula 2, are much more effective with the wind in a positive way and also in a negative way. The car was quite difficult at times. Being realistic, we were very fortunate with the conditions achieved on the final day of testing, they were very fast. The track today was much slower and that made driving today much more challenging – for us at least. With 23 rounds you’re going to experience very different things. It’s about getting the most experience banked and that’s definitely happened today.