Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Wir wussten immer, dass die warmen Bedingungen hier in Miami unserem Auto besser liegen würden. Bei früheren Rennen hatten wir Probleme, die Reifen auf Temperatur zu bringen, deshalb ist das hier ein wichtiger Faktor. Das Auto funktioniert gut, aber es ist erst Freitag, entsprechend müssen wir die Kirche im Dorf lassen. Es war wahrscheinlich der produktivste Freitag, den wir in dieser Saison hatten, was das Lernen angeht. Wir wissen, dass das Porpoising immer da sein wird, aber vielleicht funktioniert es jetzt in einem niedrigeren Bereich als vorher. Es gibt Rennen, die zu deinen Gunsten verlaufen, und solche, die gegen dich laufen - Imola war offensichtlich keine starke Strecke für uns, aber nach dem, was wir bisher gesehen haben, scheint das Auto in Miami gut zu funktionieren. Es ist eine einzigartige Strecke. Ich war etwas unsicher, wie ich mit dem langsamen, engen Abschnitt unter der Brücke zurechtkommen würde, denn dort geht es ganz schön zur Sache, aber ansonsten haben sie einen tollen Job gemacht. Die Strecke ist abschnittsweise hügelig und weist schnelle Kurven auf - ich denke, das ist toll für die Fans.

It was a good day. We focused on building up our pace little by little and learned quite a bit about this new track. It is challenging and really nice to drive, with my favourite part being the one from turn 11 to turn 16 in the second sector.
Things went smoothly on our side and we tested everything we planned to. It looks like everyone is close together, which should make for an exciting weekend.
The asphalt will spice things up. There is very high grip on the racing line and very low grip off it, which will make it difficult to overtake. It is also rather aggressive on tyres, so it will be important to manage them well throughout the race.

It’s been a difficult day for every driver today. I think it was a very messy session this afternoon, in total I did one medium lap and two soft laps. On the high fuel there was nothing we could do because of all the red flags and the time we lost. We are basically going blind into the race and I think most people are in the same boat as us. For qualifying we have more of an idea, but things can change very quickly with the weather around here. There isn’t much grip off the racing line on this track and it feels very gravely out there too, it is a shame because I think racing will be hard due to that. Saying that, I think it is going to be an interesting race because all of us don’t know exactly where we are.

Das war heute nur Training, jeder macht etwas anderes und zeigt nicht seine wahre Pace, also werden wir nicht übermütig. Das Auto fühlt sich für mich ähnlich an, aber wir scheinen schneller zu sein, und wir haben uns offensichtlich an einigen Stellen verbessert. Das Bouncing ist immer noch vorhanden, wir konnten es also noch nicht beheben, aber wir verbessern das Auto Stück für Stück. Das Rennen wird hart, vor allem, weil die Reifen überhitzen und es für die Fahrer sehr heiß ist, ich habe heute schon ein paar Kilo verloren. Die Hitze erinnert mich ein wenig an das Fahren in Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur ist immer noch die Nummer eins, was die Hitze angeht, dann Singapur und danach folgt jetzt Miami. Aus dem heutigen Tag lassen sich einige positive Aspekte ableiten: George sah auf der Strecke großartig aus, und das Team probiert viele verschiedene Dinge mit unseren Autos aus. Jetzt stecken wir unsere Köpfe zusammen und können morgen hoffentlich einen weiteren Schritt nach vorne machen.

It was a good day for us, learning the circuit and moving forward from the simulator laps to the real track. There are always some differences, so today was all about understanding everything quickly. It’s an interesting track to drive and I think we had a clean Friday. There is a lot of data to analyse now, and you can see that there is a lot more to come for everybody. We need to keep fine tuning the car; we look fast again this weekend and I think we are in a good position – I am optimistic.

A reasonable day, if a bit tricky. There’s a few challenges for us to overcome. First of all, the ambient temperatures are tough. The track grip is quite low when you leave the racing line, and it’s quite bumpy in places, so it’s a difficult track because of that. But despite that, we made some good progress throughout the day. Hopefully we can make another step into tomorrow and gain even more. It looks very close, between everyone, from the front to the back. Everyone is much closer than they have been lately, which is tough, but hopefully we can just squeeze a bit more performance. I think every little bit of time can be the difference between a few positions. It's going to be a tight qualifying, so every little thing we can get out of the car into tomorrow will be helpful.

The track is really cool here, it’s different to what we’re used to with all the varying corners, but so far I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s pretty challenging to drive, as it’s really hot and there’s also a lot of sliding, but it’s fun. The real-life laps times are pretty close to what we were seeing on the sim, it also feels pretty similar to what we were expecting, so we’ve come into the event well prepared. I think looking at today’s sessions we’re sitting right on the edge of the top 10, so hopefully we’ll make it through to Q3 in Quali tomorrow. We’ll work hard tonight, as I’m still not fully happy with the car, and hopefully find some more performance ahead of tomorrow.

I am pretty happy with how the day has gone, especially with the progress we have made between FP1 and FP2. It was quite tricky out there: it’s fun to go to new tracks, but of course the surface is always an issue at the beginning of the weekend. It was very, very slippery, we do expect it to evolve a lot, but we have to find out exactly how much tomorrow. I quite enjoyed driving here today, it was a challenge but it was interesting. For me, especially with Valtteri not being able to do FP2, it was key to get as many laps in as possible to get as much data as we could: in that regard, we did well and we have enough to work with to prepare for qualifying. My objective for tomorrow is not changing: I want to keep progressing, make it to Q2 and then do the best I can to see how far high I can get.

After waiting so long for this race weekend and with all the hype, it’s finally great to be able to be on track and experiencing it all for real. For us, it was a good day of learning on what is a brand-new track for everyone. We had a first taste of how the car would behave with the simulator work we did beforehand but, of course, with new data, we can now start to confirm and look deeper into some of the discussion points. The car seems competitive and moving in the right direction, which is good news, but it is tomorrow and Sunday that counts. There’s more to come.

It’s been an interesting day with a new track, trying to learn it quickly and get the balance dialed-in as quickly as possible. The track is changing so much because it’s brand new so it’s going to be interesting. The fast sections I’m happy with and that’s not normally what we think our strength is, so let’s see if we can try and improve the low-speed parts tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll stay in the top 10 – we’ll make some changes – but so will everyone else, so we’ll see.

Obviously not the best way to start the weekend after a costly snap ended our Friday early. Still, I feel the car was competitive and I have confidence in our performance.
It’s pointless to dwell on today, so we’ll put our full focus on tomorrow and the race.
The extra work for the mechanics is the worst part, so I’ll definitely speak to them and the rest of the team. I look forward to tomorrow.

It’s cool to be on a new track, although it was challenging as the surface is quite unique and different. It’s not the easiest to get into as just going offline, you lose so much grip. I like the first sector, that’s cool, but the real tight stuff in the middle I think is just a bit too tight for how big the cars are now. Overall, we’ve got to work on a few things tonight; just the usual things for a new track, trying to discover and learn, and just try to find a sweet spot for tomorrow.

The track here is quite special, I really like it, especially Sector 2. I’ve never driven corners like turn 11 and 16 in a F1 car before and it’s super fun. We’re still learning lots about the circuit, it was more slippery out there than I was expecting and if you even go off the racing line with just one tyre you lose a huge amount of grip, as we saw with a few cars today. Currently, I’m struggling here a little bit compared to the last few circuits, but I just need to take it step by step and build up the pace. I’m still not fully happy with the balance of the car yet, but we’ll work hard tonight and look to put it all together tomorrow for Quali.

I think we have made a good start to the weekend, but I feel that there is still room to tweak our car and adapt to the track. It is a tricky circuit and most of the corners are blind, which makes it difficult in terms of navigating traffic. This will likely be an important factor in qualifying, especially in Q1 when you need to find space. The red flags today disrupted some of our running, but we adapted as best we could because you want to get as many laps as possible on a new circuit. There is still pace on the table and if we can make some progress overnight we can hopefully edge closer to the top 10 tomorrow.

The tight section is tight, that’s for sure, and the straights are very long so it’s an interesting, different mix. It seems that the run-offs are dirty so once you go off it definitely punishes you, so it’s just a matter of putting everything together and still trying to find some set-up options so that we’re in a good position. Lots learned, lots to learn still, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Going to a new venue is always fun and they have created an interesting track here in Miami that offers a good driving challenge. Turns Four to Seven are a fun sequence of corners and allow you to attack. The sessions were disrupted with a few red flags, which is never ideal when you are learning a new track, but we did what we could. The energy around this weekend has been awesome so far and I am excited for qualifying tomorrow when dealing with traffic on a busy track will be especially challenging.

I think today has been our best Friday of the season so far. It may not look like it, especially as my final runs in FP2 were a bit scrappy and we didn't get a representative lap in, but I'm happy with how the car is feeling and performing. We'll do a bit more fine-tuning tonight now that we have some data from the practice sessions, and hopefully things will be looking positive heading into FP3 and Qualifying tomorrow.

It’s annoying to miss out on most of the day, but there is still a long way to go in this weekend. Unfortunately, I went slightly on the dirtier part of the track and lost the rear, and when that happens you cannot catch the car back. We damaged the exhaust and the turbo and it was impossible to get the car fixed in time for FP2. It means we need to really maximise the last hour of practice tomorrow: thankfully, the team has made good progress with Zhou and it seems the set-up direction we have taken, with the changes the team made on his car for FP2, is the right one. For what I could experience, the track is good fun: it’s technical and challenging, but nice to drive, and the twisty section towards the end is definitely difficult to get right. I think they did a good job in designing a track that should offer good overtaking opportunities, so hopefully the racing will be fun. The focus for me, however, is to catch up on the time we lost today.

It was an interesting first day here in Miami. It was nice to finally get out on track and experience the circuit in real life. It is a tricky and technical layout, especially the slower section around Turns 13 to 16. We are definitely going to be fine-tuning our approach overnight to try to find some more lap time in that section in particular. The other challenge we faced today was the heat; it’s very hot here and that will make it difficult for both us as drivers and the tyres across the weekend. Overall though, I think it’s been a great event for the sport so far and hopefully we will have more of the same over the next two days.

It was not a good day for us, we wanted to get out there and learn the track and get fully up to speed but things didn’t go to plan. We just had some hydraulic issues, as soon as I went out I couldn’t really steer and also my breaks were on fire, so there were a few problems. We don’t have a huge amount of information and data for my car which could prove difficult for qualifying and the race but we will do our best. Of course, I will try to catch up tomorrow, we will work very hard as a Team to overcome the issues and hopefully we will be in a good place come qualifying tomorrow.