Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

It was a positive day, of course there are always things that you can look at to try and find the complete balance, but overall today was a good start to the weekend. The softest compound is always the hardest one to nail, so I think there’s definitely more time to find in that, even then we have a competitive car so that’s good. The long run was good, it’s still hard on tyres around here so there’s still a few things to work on. Even with the things I want to improve, it was still a good day. If it rains in qualifying, it’s the same for everyone, we just deal with it. It’s good to see that for Sunday we should have a competitive car so whatever happens tomorrow, we will see.

It’s really good to be back at this track! It has a lot of character, and it’s always fun to drive on circuits where you have to ride the kerbs so much.
It was a positive first day overall. We did a good job improving our set-up from FP1 to FP2. Track evolution is usually quite big at this track, which was also the case today. The wind was quite strong, but it didn’t affect my running much. Our main focus going forward will be in preparing our race in the best possible way.

It’s great to be back in Canada, at a circuit that is demanding, bumpy and full of kerbs, so it’s definitely a challenge for these new cars. I’ve enjoyed the first practice day and we have been able to progress well through the two sessions.
It got very tricky at times due to the strong and gusty wind, but we managed to complete all our programme without any issues. Understanding the tyres will be very important come Sunday and we gathered good data with today’s run plan. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s qualifying.

This is a tricky circuit to get right, especially after a couple of years away – I lost the car a couple of times on the approach to Turn One – but, overall, the car was pretty well behaved. Still, I think we need to be realistic about qualifying tomorrow; we’re improving all the time but we still have some work to do. I think Saturday could be tricky – the conditions have been unpredictable all weekend and it looks likely to be another wet-dry day. But I’m looking forward to whatever the weather throws at us.

I think it was another decent Friday for us today. The car seems to be performing quite well at this challenging track here in Montreal. We haven’t raced in Canada for a number of years and it does feel a bit different than in previous years. Things like riding the kerbs gives a very different feeling with the ground effect cars. Overall, it was a good experience today. It looks like it could be a mixed weather forecast tomorrow, so we tried to get as much data as we could in preparation for the race.

It was extremely difficult today, the performance in the end on one lap was good but I’m not feeling great at the moment in the car. I’ve really struggled with the balance, as well as tyre degradation in the long runs, so it’s been quite tricky. We’ll look to see what we can do for tomorrow, the weather conditions for Qualifying look like they will be wet, which could make things interesting. It’s encouraging that the pace is there on the timing screens, but the field is very tight, so we’ve definitely still got some work to do ahead of tomorrow.

Es macht Spaß, auf dieser Strecke zu fahren. Sie ist altmodisch und sehr anspruchsvoll, weil die Autos über die Kerbs springen. Unsere Performance war nicht so, wie wir es uns gewünscht haben. Wir sind ziemlich weit von der Pace der ersten beiden Teams entfernt und es gibt auch ein paar Jungs - Fernando und Seb - die sehr stark aussehen, also haben wir noch einiges zu tun. Es ist immer noch sehr holprig da draußen, die Steifigkeit dieser Autos ist ziemlich brutal. Wir können nicht mehr so viel über die Kerbs fahren wie früher. Wir haben das Auto so weich wie möglich abgestimmt, aber irgendetwas an dieser Fahrzeuggeneration hindert uns daran, das zu tun. Das war während des zweiten Trainings wahrscheinlich die größte Abweichung in der Abstimmung zwischen Lewis und mir, wir sind in völlig unterschiedliche Richtungen gegangen, also werden wir in der Lage sein, über Nacht einen goldenen Mittelweg zwischen den beiden Varianten zu finden. Wir müssen uns vor dem Mittelfeld qualifizieren. Wir haben ein starkes Rennauto, das wahrscheinlich das drittschnellste im Presse-Information 17. Juni 2022 Feld ist, aber wenn wir es zulassen, dass ein oder zwei Autos vor uns landen, könnte es schwierig werden.

Tough day. I’d say positive, because we got through a lot of what we wanted to, but not everything. We had a couple of issues, so I didn’t get as much running as what I wanted to. We’re a little bit on the back foot with a couple of things, especially in the long run. Apart from that, the car’s in a reasonable place. We’ve definitely got some work to do with some much quicker cars ahead. But, apart from that, positive, and we’ll continue to improve into tomorrow.

I’ve definitely missed this track after not coming here for a few years. It’s so much fun. I’ve just enjoyed it. Enjoyed driving. It’s awesome – one of the best for sure in my opinion. I think we got into the groove pretty quickly and we showed good signs. We’ll see what happens with the weather – I think we were quite lucky to get a dry day today, but we’ll see what happens for tomorrow. It could be completely different, but I think today was a solid start. Hopefully we can do a bit of fine-tuning and then find a little bit more speed overnight now. Overall, it was just an enjoyable Friday. So, I’m happy to be back.

t feels good to be back in Montreal and drive here after four years away for me. Today was all about getting back to grips with the track and understanding it. It’s important to tune the car and optimise it as best as we can for a track like this and I think we used both sessions well for that today. We were a bit unlucky early in FP1 with the plastic bag getting stuck in my front right brake and losing time, but it was a productive day nevertheless. We missed the rain by minutes today but looks like it will be wet tomorrow and we might see a bit of a shuffle in the order of cars, which could make it interesting. From the looks of it, we have a competitive car, so hopefully we can make the most of the opportunities.

Unfortunately, there is not much we can read into the sessions today, to really work the car out you need to get good pace and then work from there, which I couldn’t do today. We had an issue with the set-up on our low fuel runs but luckily we managed to figure it out and the long runs were a bit more representative but still we had a bit of an issue - hopefully tomorrow we can sort everything out. I am a bit on the back foot but, all being well tonight, we are able to make the right compromises to be competitive tomorrow. We will see what the weather does for qualifying tomorrow because it could really shake things up. Max looks strong so that gives me the hope we can make my car competitive when it matters on Saturday.

It is great to return to Montreal – my home race – because we have not been here for a few years. The energy from the Canadian fans is always very special and the grandstands were full today, which is great to see. I am pleased with the work we did, even though my final run in FP2 was impacted by traffic, which held us back a bit. Overall, though, we took some useful steps forward with the set-up and I think we have done some of our homework for the rest of the weekend. We just need to wait and see what happens with the weather now.

Es war so ziemlich wie jeden Freitag, wir haben mit vielen Dingen experimentiert. Wir haben heute Vormittag einen neuen Unterboden an meinem Auto ausprobiert, der nicht wirklich funktionierte, und es scheint, dass viele Dinge, die wir an diesem Auto ausprobieren, nicht funktionieren. Wir haben im zweiten Training mit sehr unterschiedlichen Abstimmungen an den beiden Autos experimentiert, um zu sehen, ob die eine Variante funktioniert und die andere nicht. Was auch immer wir an diesem Auto tun, um es zu verbessern, macht es nur noch schwieriger, aber wir müssen weiterarbeiten, es ist, wie es ist. Wenn man die Randsteine hier nur leicht berührt, geht das Auto sofort fliegen, es ist so steif und hier in Montreal muss man wirklich über die Kerbs fahren. Es ist nicht das Montreal, das ich gewohnt bin und wo ich im Laufe meiner Karriere schon so oft gefahren bin. So schlimm hat sich hier noch keines meiner Autos angefühlt, also hoffe ich, dass wir über Nacht ein paar solide Fortschritte machen können. Du kämpfst sehr hart, um das Auto von der Mauer fernzuhalten, du fängst ein Auto ab, das springt, das hält dich definitiv auf Trab. Wir haben das Auto angehoben, aber es hat keinen wirklichen Unterschied gemacht.

It’s good to be back in Canada. We had a pretty normal Friday, no big issues. As usual there’s lots to look at tonight, lots to study. I’m looking forward to tomorrow – I think with the weather it could be interesting.

It was good fun – the fans were amazing out there, being here the whole day. We had a tough FP1 but a good FP2 in the sense that we got through everything. The car is quite stiff again, so we’ll see how that affects my back at the end of the race but overall the car felt pretty good. The track felt quite slippery, I don’t know if that’s normal, so we’ll see next year if that’s the case but it’s good to be here, good to get the experience and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

It wasn’t a bad Friday for my side of the garage, but I feel there’s plenty more to come for tomorrow, once we put the new package on the car. This is a good track, I really like it: it’s quite bumpy, especially with the new cars, and the kerbs are not easy to tackle. In a sense, it reminds me of Melbourne, it’s quite challenging. It was quite slippery out there at the beginning of FP1, but it’s mostly a matter of getting into a rhythm and finding out the best way to attack the kerbs without losing the car. We have a bit of work to do tonight, but I feel we can make a big step before FP3. The whole field is very tight, I reckon qualifying will be really intense: I am quite happy about our pace as we are closer to the guys ahead compared to the usual on Friday. Once again, it will be a matter of putting everything together tomorrow: the car is there, the performance is there, we just need to deliver.

It’s the first time I’ve driven here in Canada, and I must say I really like this track. I’ve enjoyed it so much, it’s been really fun. Quickly in FP1, after just three or four laps, we’ve been able to be on the pace so that’s been positive. It’s bumpy here, but also quite technical, so I just need to continue to build up the pace in the next practice session and learn more about this track. We’ve obviously got the penalty here this weekend, so we’ve been focussing on longer runs to prepare us for Sunday’s race and hope we can make our way forward.

[It was} not a bad day actually for us – we did a good job and we do have a bit to find. I think in FP2 we possibly went the wrong way, but we’ve got some good data to look at and we’ll find a good place in between the two cars that we had but we’ll see.

In general, it was a trouble-free first day. Obviously a very special feeling to start the weekend at my home Grand Prix and drive in front of the home fans. I honestly felt a lot of support in the build-up to this and it’s carried over to this weekend. On the track, it's been difficult with the pace of the car.
We’re lacking performance and I still need to try and extract a bit more. So, we’ll keep working overnight to try and make some gains for Saturday.

It’s disappointing to miss out on FP2 today: we had an electronics issue and, every time I downshifted, the car would go into neutral. We couldn’t find a reason during the session so we had to stop: of course, we will find a fix for it but it’s not ideal. We need clean days of running and to minimise the issues, and I know everyone in the team is working as hard as they can for this. Hopefully we will be able to make up for the lost time tomorrow. Earlier in the day, in FP1, we focused mostly on the mechanical set-up: there are still some old bits on the car and we are going to put the new ones tomorrow, so there’s more to be found there, but so far we achieved a good balance, something to build on. Having missed FP2, it’s hard to talk much about times: we will see what tomorrow brings. The weather conditions could be mixed, which would make everything more exciting and create some opportunities: we will need to make sure our car is fixed and that we are ready, whatever the weather, to be in the fight.