Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

This was probably the busiest FP2 I’ve done so far, but it was fun. We completed a lot of laps, which is good because I didn’t drive in FP1, and tested the prototype tyres for next year.
It was a positive day overall, the feeling in the car was good from the start and I look forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow.

Today has been a bit of a peculiar day, both because of the Pirelli tyre test and because FP2 has been my first session in the car. I was still able to do a couple of runs to set the car up in the early part of the session, before I switched to the Pirelli programme, so those lap times are not really representative: still, the overall feeling is positive. I was able to get up to speed immediately and the car didn’t feel too bad, even though we didn’t have the upgrades we’re saving for tomorrow: hopefully this means there’s still quite some margin for improvement. I think a shot at Q3 is realistic but, as always, the key to being at the top of such a close midfield will be perfect execution.

An interesting day. I didn’t drive this morning but then had a long afternoon session, so it was kind of intense. It was obviously really cool just to be back out here. I love this place and this circuit is good fun. It’s pretty different with these cars this year. There are a lot more blind spots and the cars are still pretty stiff, so even though they’ve resurfaced it’s still a bit of a handful in some places.
I think it was a productive day, we’ll definitely make some changes tonight to try to help us out. It’s tricky with the different programme everyone had in FP2 to work out how competitive we are, but we’ll keep at it regardless. It was fun to get some laps in, and I’ll sleep well tonight and prepare for tomorrow.

It was a different Friday here in Austin. In FP1 we managed to complete our programme, but FP2 was dedicated to the Pirelli test, so it was one and a half hours of trying next year’s tyres without changing the se- up of the car. This also means tomorrow’s FP3 will be even more important than usual ahead of qualifying.
However, overall we have been relatively competitive today so we are confident going into tomorrow.

It’s great to be back, we have our special livery out this weekend and driving in front of a home crowd is always nice. The performance was there, but you never know what’s happening around you and what compounds or fuel loads others are using. We’ll gladly take it today, but I don’t think that’s possible for us tomorrow. Nonetheless, we still have some work to do and hopefully we’ll qualify in the top 10, and then have a good race.

A reasonable day. This is a difficult circuit, some parts are still quite bumpy, which is a challenge in this car. Some parts of the track are smoother where they’ve resurfaced it. I think we’ve found a direction to go in with the set-up, so we’ll make some more changes overnight, as it seemed in the right direction from FP1 to FP2. FP2 we didn’t really get to try too many things because of the tyre test. Reasonable Friday and I look forward to tomorrow.

FP1 I think was quite good, we tried a few things with the car and it was pretty positive. We did as much as we could in FP1 as we knew we had to test the tyres in FP2. I tested the C1 tyre which probably isn’t the best for this track, it was difficult to get a proper grip on it but at least we completed the programme. Looking ahead to tomorrow, I think the long run is still questionable as we didn’t get the chance to do that in FP2. I did a track walk yesterday to see the bumps as they resurfaced parts of the track, also good for me to walk off the steaks I’ve been eating.

Heute lief alles nach Plan. Ich bin allen in der Fabrik sehr dankbar, dass sie so hart gearbeitet und die Upgrades für dieses Wochenende fertiggestellt haben. Es war ein unglaublich hartes Jahr für uns, und das Team hat kontinuierlich alles gegeben. Jeder hat den Kopf unten behalten, und es fühlt sich so an, als ob wir bei der Performance des Autos Fortschritte machen würden. Das zweite Training hat uns wegen der Reifentests keine wirklichen Hinweise auf unsere Performance gegeben, aber die erste Session fühlte sich recht gut an. Wir werden heute Abend hoffentlich einige Änderungen vornehmen und morgen herausfinden, wo genau wir stehen - aber es fühlt sich nicht so an, als wären wir zu weit weg. Der Reifentest war ein schönes Experiment. Man weiß nicht, was einen erwartet, wenn man auf die Strecke geht, und es gibt immer eine andere Balance, denn die Reifen verhalten sich jedes Mal anders, wenn man rausfährt. Ich habe versucht, in den Groove zu kommen und zu spüren, was die Unterschiede sind. In den vergangenen Jahren war es viel vorhersehbarer - mit dem aktuellen Auto muss man sich viel mehr darauf einstellen und dann versuchen, das Gelernte zu speichern. 

On paper we expected to struggle with this track, but our performance and speed in FP1 was really good. The car has been feeling better than the last two weekends, so we hope we can make another step forward tomorrow. I don’t want to change the car too much, because the initial feeling is good, but FP3 will give us a chance to finetune specific places to extract more from the car, to allow us to hopefully fight for the top ten in Quali.

We got good information during FP1 so, hopefully tomorrow after not being able to gain as much in FP2 due to the tyre test, we will be able to get everything right and have a decent qualifying session. Given that we have taken an engine penalty we need a good quali to be able to start as far forward as possible. I believe we can go well around this circuit and have a strong pace through the weekend. I think we need to work a little on the high-speed versus the low-speed balance, we need to improve that to help degradation and everything will come together.

I think it’s about finding a good compromise with the wind firstly because there’s sector one and half of sector two which is tailwind, and the rest of the track is headwind. The balance is very different and it’s only going to get stronger tomorrow and on Sunday. It’s different with these cars as they’re so stiff. The last car I drove around here was the older generation car and they were much softer. It is a bumpy track so you feel it so much more with these cars, and it can make it snap in a couple of places. I’d say it’s actually a little more difficult to drive now.

In FP1 we made some changes to the car to look at the balance, and I felt quite comfortable with this, so it looks like we’re in quite a strong position heading into tomorrow. We’ll have to adapt quite quickly in FP3, as the second session today was really an exhibition session, rather than just a carry on from FP1. It was however a useful session to learn more about the compounds for the future, so that will be helpful moving forward. I think the details are all on the table though from FP1, so I just need to put it altogether myself tomorrow and hopefully we can look to aim for Q3.

Der Reifentest im FP2 war definitiv einzigartig, aber gut, um zu lernen und zu verstehen, welche Reifen wir für das nächste Jahr bekommen werden. Jeder war auf etwas anderen Reifenmischungen unterwegs. Mal sehen, welche Erkenntnisse wir daraus mitnehmen können. Die Upgrades, die wir am Auto hatten, fühlten sich bisher gut an. FP1 war heute eine seltsame Session, in der einige Teams unerwartet schnell aussahen, während andere Teams nicht so schnell waren, wie wir es erwartet hatten. Aufgrund des veränderten FP2-Formats wissen wir noch nicht, wie das Kräfteverhältnis aussehen wird, aber bisher fühlt sich unser Auto recht stark an, was vielversprechend ist. Ich hoffe, dass wir an diesem Wochenende vor dem Mittelfeld liegen werden. Wir werden über Nacht so hart wie möglich arbeiten und versuchen sicherzustellen, dass wir ein schnelles Auto haben werden.

It’s been good fun out there today: the track is one of the bumpiest I’ve driven so far, but nevertheless it felt like a nice layout, with a nice variety of different speed corners. I think I learned quite a lot, even though FP2 was a bit limited because of the tyre test: in the first practice session, I felt at ease straight away, so hopefully we can keep up this momentum ahead of qualifying tomorrow. Q2, as always, will be our minimum aim; we know we’ve done it before and we want to do it again. The battle for Q3 will likely be quite tight, and much will depend on how good one’s lap is. If everything works with the new package, then we can have a nice shot at it, even though I will have a five-place grid penalty for Sunday. It will be a bit difficult starting from behind, but of course we will do our best.

It felt pretty good out there today, but tomorrow’s practice session will probably give a better indication of where we stack up in this really close midfield. We were able to focus on both long and short runs despite the reduced running in FP1, so that was useful. But, we still have speed to find and a few things we can tweak here and there to find some performance. Everyone is in the same boat in terms of preparation this weekend due to the tyre test. On those tyres we ran this afternoon, it was difficult to generate heat quickly with the cooler tyre blankets.

It’s nice to be back in Austin and driving at the Circuit of the Americas, a track I really enjoy. It was obviously an unusual Friday for everyone as we really only had Free Practice 1 to work on our set-up with this year’s tyres, making this a relatively short day for us. It was interesting, however, to test next year’s tyres during Free Practice 2 along with new tyre blanket temperatures and various other things that we’ll be working with in 2023. We’ll be looking at the data from both sessions closely and see what set-up items we can come up with for tomorrow.

My first free practice in the F1-75 felt amazing today. We completed everything we had planned for the session and the team was satisfied with the work we did.
The track was challenging, bumpy and windy, which took some getting used to. As a driver you always want to push more and you want to go for the performance, but my goal today was to improve progressively without taking any risks while driving a completely new car. I am happy to have achieved that.
I’m looking forward to driving again in Abu Dhabi for my second free practice. I think that with my knowledge of the track there and the experience gained today, I can do even better.
Thank you to Scuderia Ferrari for their trust and this opportunity.

It was a good Friday Practice for us today and we successfully completed our run programme. We’ll continue our analysis overnight and into tomorrow in Free Practice 3, so that we can be in the best shape for Qualifying. We also had the Pirelli tyre test this afternoon and hopefully they can take lots of data from it. It’s great to be back in front of the fans here in Austin and we are looking forward to Qualifying tomorrow.

Awesome. I’m super-happy. The session went really well. You always think that you’re ready but you never know when you come here. Obviously there’s a bit of pressure of having a car that’s not yours, that has to go out on the track again a short time later, along with all the data we had to collect for the team. I think the Driver Development Programme work that we did before coming here was awesome because it got me ready for today – and I think I did everything I could in an hour. I felt as comfortable as I could expect. Obviously not my car, not my team environment either – but I still felt really comfortable, and I think we achieved what we wanted, so really, really happy.

The one representative session we had today went surprisingly okay being 13th on the time sheet. There’s definitely some more time to be found. It’s tricky with it being windy up here and the winds only going to get worse during the weekend which doesn’t tend to suit our car. We’ll do our homework tonight to see what we can change from today into tomorrow to be more productive.

It’s been an amazing experience, the best hour of my life and I am so grateful to the team for the trust they’ve put in me. Discovering this track was incredible and the car is just something special: I have been through lots of emotions and I’m just so happy right now. My main target was to help the team and I was pleased to be able to do so: we had a good session, did quite a few laps and everyone was satisfied, so it’s a good start of the weekend. I tried to push a bit at the end, but my focus was mostly on understanding everything about the car, the steering wheel and so on. I would like to thank Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN for this opportunity: it’s been a very intense experience, I enjoyed every minute of it and tried to learn as much as I could from the car and the team around me.

The main goal coming into today was to learn as much as possible and I feel like I did pick up on a lot. It was very different to what I honestly expected but in a good way. The way that the car reacts compared to what I’m used to in Formula 2 is massively different. Super reactive in the high-speed and so good on the brakes. A lot of potential to still pick up on and improve on, but I think it was a good start and happy with how it went. A massive thank you to Williams and Dorilton Motor Sports for their support and the opportunity today.

We did a lot of laps early in FP1 and perhaps we did not catch the track at its best, but I think we got the answers we need to prepare for the rest of the weekend. There are some things we will adapt on the set-up, especially to improve the balance through sector one where a tailwind is making things quite tricky. The afternoon session was dominated by the Pirelli tyre testing. It made it difficult to learn a huge amount more, but any time in the car is always useful and we tried a few things.

I wasn’t pushing but there were lots of gusts of wind and unfortunately I lost the rear, which got stuck in the barriers, and the session was over. It was only my second push lap in the session, my first with DRS, so apologies to the team. It’s racing and sometimes these things happen.

Probably the strangest Friday I’ve had as a Formula 1 driver. It was my first time missing FP1 and then the Pirelli tyre test in FP2. I took today as a chance to get into the rhythm of the track. It’s going to feel very different tomorrow when I’m back on this year’s tyres. We’ll be looking to start off strong in FP3 and maximise every lap.