Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

With weather conditions likely to be variable this weekend, our main focus was on set-up work today. We did some race simulations too, as we may not have the chance to collect representative data in FP3 tomorrow.
Though track evolution is always quite high here, it was lower than we expected today. It will be key to put the tyres in the right window tomorrow.

Things are feeling good. The car is in a good place and seems to be suiting this track a little bit more. But we’re always a little quicker in FP2 than where we end up being on Saturday. Normally, we know everyone else, especially Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes usually step it up a lot more tomorrow. But we’re feeling good. I can be happy in saying the car is in a reasonable position. We’re probably a little bit ahead of where we were in Paul Ricard. I’m not expecting to be fighting for pole, but hopefully we can be a little bit ahead of where we were in France, especially for the race.

It has been an interesting Friday. The car felt very good straight out of the garage in FP1 and we could put together some very good laps.
For FP2 we tried a couple of changes in the set-up to evaluate which direction is best to take for tomorrow and the race. We lost the feeling a bit, but we are in a good place in terms of car balance and pace.
It looks like tomorrow might be wet, so we’ll have to adapt to the conditions. Today was a positive day for the team and I look forward to the rest of the weekend.

As expected, it was a bit tricky around here today, we were trying to find the right balance from high to low speed, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t – there’s a bit of work to do. I think the Ferraris will be ahead of us this weekend and it will be hard to beat them. We’ll work hard overnight and try and close that gap as much as we can. The weather looks like it will have an impact on us tomorrow. In the dry we might struggle to compete, but it could be a different story in the rain; who knows, we will see tomorrow.

I think it was a good day, it was solid. We had a pretty good showing in both sessions, which is positive. Obviously, we had updates last week and perhaps they’re working a little bit better around this track so that’s good. I think there’s still bits and pieces we can improve on, for sure, but it’s been a positive Friday and one of the better ones this year. I’m happy with that, but we will probably have to put some wet set-up in for tomorrow, but it’s nice to have a solid Friday and I think everyone’s in good spirits.

It was a productive Friday today and we tried a few different things in terms of the car set-up. The weather looks very changeable tomorrow and Sunday, so who knows what we will be facing, but we gathered some good data and ran a smooth programme in both practice sessions. The car felt quite good and enjoyable to drive, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow. I must say it was also very nice to drive around Budapest on my birthday!

On the face of it, our pace today looked quite good – our long runs were quite competitive, and I think we did a solid job as a team, but the car is still quite difficult to drive. We have recently struggled to qualify in dry conditions so I am optimistic that tomorrow’s expected heavy rain will provide us with an opportunity. I love driving this circuit and I really hope that the weather does not stop us putting on a show for the fans tomorrow.

Es war definitiv nicht unser rundester Freitag in dieser Saison. Vielmehr war es ein bisschen seltsam, weil wir denken, dass es morgen im Qualifying nass sein wird und am Sonntag wieder anders. Wir haben einige Dinge am Auto ausprobiert und den heutigen Tag als Testsession genutzt. Es war zwar ein harter Tag, aber wahrscheinlich auch ein produktiver. Heute ging es eher darum, langfristige Lehren zu ziehen, als unsere Rundenzeiten zu optimieren, aber wir lagen weiter zurück, als wir wahrscheinlich erwartet hatten, mit ein paar Problemen hier und da. Morgen wird ein völlig neuer Tag, und am Sonntag wird es erneut ganz anders aussehen.

We were trying various bits to get comfortable with the car today and I think we have got a good idea and understanding of things, so hopefully tomorrow we will be able to show what we have learned. That should transfer to both high and low fuel pace and I am fairly optimistic for the weekend, but the Ferraris certainly look very strong. They are very fast but rain tomorrow could mix things up a bit and we can be up there with them. We must put everything together tomorrow for qualifying and I am looking forward to it.

I had FP2 to get a bit of a feel for the car and the updates we are bringing for this race. I think we’ve made a step forward in terms of grip, we are moving in the right direction: the midfield is going to be as close as always, so every little improvement can give you an edge. I know there’s a lot more to come from my side, so I am satisfied with what we did today, it wasn’t a bad start. Tomorrow may be a very different day when it comes to the weather, but we did work to prepare for all conditions. Overall, the balance of the car is not bad so I think we’re in a good place for Sunday.

Wir hatten heute mit dem Auto zu kämpfen. Es ist verrückt, wie es von Strecke zu Strecke schwankt. Heute Abend werden wir am Setup arbeiten und versuchen, das Auto zum Laufen zu bringen. Im Moment ist es ein wenig zu instabil und tut nicht das, was wir wollen. Seit letzter Woche hat sich nicht viel geändert, ich bin immer noch derselbe Fahrer! Aber aus irgendeinem Grund funktioniert das Auto auf dieser Strecke nicht so gut. In den Momenten, in denen es funktionierte, hatten wir immer noch eine Sekunde Rückstand, was ähnlich wie letzte Woche war. Ich hatte am Ende keine große Chance auf einen Long-Run, weil ich einen Schaden am Boden hatte und dadurch viel Abtrieb verloren habe. Es wird ein hartes Wochenende, aber wir werden alles geben.

Today went reasonably smooth, we took a step forward in the afternoon compared to FP1, although there is still plenty of stuff to look through overnight preparing for Saturday. Hopefully, we will be able to have a better performance tomorrow compared to the previous weekends, but I think it’s safe to say we aren’t looking too bad. In today’s hot conditions, we didn’t struggle much compared to Paul Ricard, so I think what needs to be done is some fine tuning to be all set for tomorrow. As usual, the midfield is set to be tight, so we need to put out our best performances and be able to get back to Q2 which should be our base goal from now on.

It’s great to be back driving in Budapest as lots of great memories came back to me! In terms of our running, it was good to get two practice sessions under our belt. We are still unsure about the weather forecast for tomorrow and today could likely be the only dry running we have before Qualifying or even the Race. We’ve extracted a good understanding on a variety of things, which puts us in good shape for the rest of the weekend. As we know, rain here can make things interesting so let’s see how that pans out and see what we can achieve.

It is positive that we are still bringing updates to the car – we will look at the data tonight to see what impact they are having. Today was a good day – in the dry, we look to be right in the mix in the midfield. But it is very close there, with only a couple of tenths separating much of the pack. The forecast for the rest of the weekend is uncertain so it is difficult to predict where anyone will be in qualifying tomorrow or in Sunday’s race.

I was pretty happy with my lap and managed to put a good one together in FP2. In terms of performance, we are not there yet. We are sliding too much, so we will have to see what we can change by tomorrow to be faster. There isn’t a massive issue with the balance, and I felt like I was really on the limit, putting a clean lap together, but the time does not seem to reflect that, so we will need to analyse it tonight. Based on the forecast it will be wet tomorrow for Qualifying, which are conditions I enjoy driving in. Hopefully we find some solutions to improve the car, but a bit of rain wouldn’t be a bad thing for us.

It felt quite smooth really. We had no issues with it and the feeling in the car was pretty good. It was basically more or less what we expected, so I’m happy with that. There’s going to be more work to do to extract more out of it and that’s going to come in time and so far, it’s been going well. We hope to move further up the grid tomorrow and it looks like it’s going to be wet, so that’s going to be a curveball.

It was quite tricky. It’s just a matter of getting used to this track with these new cars – it’s a lot more mechanical, a lot bumpier. We’re figuring out where the bumps are at the moment, and also trying to adapt the car set-up to what we need here. We still need to work a bit on high and low-fuel but our main focus at the moment is high. Usually in the wet our car has been quite strong so let’s hope for the best tomorrow. If we have everything in the right spot, we should be decent.

Overall it’s been a tricky day with the track conditions and temperature which have probably been the same for everybody. We struggled to get the balance dialled in, so there’s still a bit of lap time to extract if we can bring the car a little bit more together. There are still a few things on my side to work on. Tomorrow could provide some opportunities with the mixed conditions so hopefully, we can take advantage of that.

It is always good and interesting to be in the car, as there is always something to learn. For the second time in a row after France, track conditions were different, we ran a few tests and we discovered some new things. All in all, I think we did a good job. We had some updates on the car, so I made sure I took it easy to avoid any damage, but I still had a little bit of fun. I did one run on the hard compound and then switched them for softs, it’s never the most straightforward to switch from one compound to the other but all went well.

Today feels like quite a step-back since France, where the car was performing quite well. Here in Hungary, the balance of the car is not ideal, I’m really struggling with it a lot, so we need to go away with the engineers tonight and find out what the issue is, so we can improve for tomorrow. It’s looking like it’ll rain for Quali, I’m not quite sure how I feel about that yet, it really depends on what we’re able to learn overnight and how much more pace we can find in FP3.

We didn’t really do a proper short run and we had to cut the race run short, so it was not a smooth session today, but anyway we will go into tomorrow fresh. It’s likely to be wet, so it’ll be a bit of a reset for everyone and I don’t think today will hurt us too much.