Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

I’m really happy with how that session went, I think the car came together well. Liam did a really good job in FP1, he was calm and steady which is exactly what we needed. In FP2 we tried a few things and in the long runs the car was working quite well, so I’m pretty happy with that. Weather wise, the temperature in FP2 was more representative of what it will be like during qualifying. Of course, we’ll always try to refine a few things overnight, but we should be competitive in quali and the race.

Wir hatten einen sehr starken Tag, was das angeht, was wir gelernt haben, wenn man bedenkt, dass dies eine der letzten Gelegenheiten ist, um Erkenntnisse für die nächste Saison zu sammeln. Angesichts der Testelemente, die wir im FP1 ausprobiert haben, vor allem auf meiner Seite der Garage, freue ich mich auf das Jahr 2023 mit dem, was wir heute gelernt haben. Im FP2 hat sich die Strecke durch den Temperaturabfall komplett verändert. Das Auto fühlte sich schnell an, aber ich denke, Red Bull ist uns in Bezug auf die Pace auf einer Runde voraus, und vielleicht sogar noch mehr auf den Long Runs. Wir haben also über Nacht noch einiges zu tun, aber im Vergleich zu Ferrari sieht unsere Performance, soweit wir das beurteilen können, für dieses Wochenende vernünftig aus. Ich hoffe, dass wir morgen im Qualifying um die Top-3-Positionen kämpfen können und dann werden wir sehen, wohin uns das am Sonntag führen kann. Wir werden die Köpfe unten halten und über Nacht unsere Arbeit erledigen.

Overall, our sessions were ok. We struggled a bit with the race pace due to tyre degradation, which was expected. Our qualifying pace was a little better, but our competitors seem to be a step ahead.
We will use tomorrow’s practice to make further progress and give it our all for the last qualifying of the year.

Das FP1 hat sich heute gut angefühlt, was ein positiver Ausblick auf das nächste Jahr ist. Im FP2 war die Fahrzeugbalance nach einigen Setup-Änderungen zwischen den Sessions etwas unausgeglichen. Deshalb müssen wir über Nacht einige Updates vornehmen, aber ansonsten sind wir relativ konkurrenzfähig. Das Reifenmanagement für das morgige Qualifying wird schwierig sein. Im FP1 konnte man einen langsamen Run fahren, um die Reifen zum Funktionieren zu bringen, und im FP2 dauerte es viel länger, bis sie im richtigen Fenster waren, es ist also ein bisschen wie Würfeln. Wir hoffen, dass wir an diesem Wochenende mit unserer Rennpace konkurrenzfähig sein können, aber wir müssen noch besser verstehen, wo wir im Vergleich zu den anderen Teams stehen. Wir werden über Nacht hart arbeiten und hoffen, dass wir um die Spitze mitkämpfen können. Ein großes Dankeschön an alle in der Fabrik und hier an der Rennstrecke, die das ganze Jahr über so viel Engagement gezeigt und hart gearbeitet haben.

It was a really cool experience today, it’s the first time I’ve tested for Oracle Red Bull Racing during a Formula One weekend. I was a little bit nervous before the session, but the car is really good so I felt comfortable straight away. We managed to get quite a lot of laps in on both the hards and the softs, at the moment there’s a big jump between the two tyre types. It was great to get the opportunity to try out the softs. I drove the AlphaTauri in Mexico but it’s difficult to compare the two as Mexico is a completely different track and at a much higher altitude. Today was a great day and I'm thankful for the opportunity.

The car was good today. It was a very interesting two sessions, very different in the morning to the afternoon. This morning was a bit tricky with the temperatures, which means the afternoon session is the one we really have to pay attention to, because it will be the most representative for the weekend. We are just exploring the balance around the car but generally, we feel we have plenty of information for tomorrow and more importantly, for Sunday. We are competitive in the long-runs but we have a bit of time to find in the short runs. There are a few bits to analyse to see where we can do better, it is very important here to have great race pace here.

It was a very busy FP2 for me after missing the first session, so it was all about catching up and getting into the rhythm as soon as possible.
The feeling on track wasn’t too bad but I know we’ve got plenty of margin to improve tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the last qualifying of the year.

It’s always a pleasure to drive under the lights in Abu Dhabi, and the last Friday of the season was a solid one for us. There were some good overall improvements from FP1 to FP2, and we gained a good understanding of the Soft and Medium tyres in both sessions. It was a positive day overall but it’s only Practice and we’ll need to be at our best tomorrow to have a good result in Qualifying. It’s not the easiest track on the calendar for overtaking so we’ll need to work hard tonight to ensure we’re in a good position ahead of the last Qualifying session of the year.

Today’s practice was good and I’m happy with the progress that I made. Ending the session in P7 felt good, I felt comfortable in the car and we ran through the planned programme without any issues.
We started the practice with some development testing and the team was satisfied with the data we collected. I look forward to being back in the car on Tuesday for a full day of testing, where my target is to make further improvements and gain more valuable experience in this generation of car. Thank you to Scuderia Ferrari for this great opportunity.

It’s the last Friday of the year and there was obviously a little less Practice time for me today than normal, after Jack [Doohan] took over in Free Practice 1. I was more or less up to speed straight away and adapted to the car in the evening session and we completed our programme smoothly. However, the balance still needs a little bit of work so that we can have a comfortable car for tomorrow in Qualifying. Every day feels like a last day, so I’m trying to enjoy every moment with the team.

That was good fun. We had a little bit of a limit on running due to managing an oil leak but still had a pretty good day, we were fairly competitive. Just a few more things to find for tomorrow, but I think we’re in a good spot.

We had a good start of the weekend: a smooth day without issues, in which we could do all the laps and all the tests we had planned. The car balance felt good from the start, so we didn’t have to do big changes: we just focused on fine-tuning the car, especially in the second session as conditions were a lot closer to what we’ll have in qualifying tomorrow. I finished both sessions in the top ten, which is definitely a promising start: on the back of the last couple of races, where we were quite strong, it’s a good sign and hopefully we can keep this momentum going.

A reasonable day. Having swapped out for Pato in FP1 I was playing a bit of catch-up and I'm still a little bit behind, but I think we made a decent start to the weekend. We’ll make some tweaks overnight and try to take a step forward tomorrow.

It has been like many other Fridays, to be honest! Once you drive out of the garage, you get into the rhythm and try and get in the groove with the car which did not take long this afternoon. It was the same again this evening with how the track changes here when the sun sets. It does feel a bit funny that it is the last Friday, however. All in all, a productive day with plenty of laps. We will see what we can do overnight and how we can improve ahead of tomorrow.

I am quite pleased with the day: FP2 was my first time on track here with the C42, and the car felt good right away, so it didn’t take me more than a couple of laps to find the rhythm on track. I felt quite comfortable in the short runs, and we also did a few long runs to identify any areas to tweak ahead of tomorrow. I am confident about our qualifying pace, and I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t get the best out of the car and place ourselves in a good position on the grid. The upgrades we have introduced in the last few rounds keep making our car better, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

We completed some good laps in FP2 this evening after making way for Felipe earlier in the day. He did a really good job in FP1. We have some ideas that we want to think about overnight based on the data we have gathered today. It looks like it will be tight against our competitors again here, just as it has been all season. To beat them, we will need to maximise everything we can across the rest of the weekend.

It’s always nice to drive this car and I’m very pleased about my performance, especially as the last time I was in the C42 was back in Hungary. I was driving LMP2 cars last week and there’s always some getting used to with a different car, but it all went surprisingly well, especially with the hard tyres. In the end, in an FP1 you only have a single lap to nail it, that’s the challenge of this session. I had a good feeling with the car, and we figured out quickly where to improve. It was a productive day and it gives us confidence for the rest of the weekend.

I'm really happy to complete my fourth and final Free Practice session with Williams this season. I feel a lot more comfortable and confident in the car since my very first lap in Austin. A massive thanks to everyone in the team for the support they've given me. I look forward to being back behind the wheel of the FW44 for the Young Driver Test in a few days. My full focus is on finishing the final Sprint and Feature races of my F2 season on a high note.

I struggled a lot with the balance in FP1. It was a bit of an unusual session, as there were a lot of young drivers on track, and whilst P13 doesn’t look that great on paper, it was further up the time sheet than we would’ve been in a normal session. Heading into FP2, I felt that the balance had improved, and I was more comfortable in the car, but we’re still missing a lot of performance. We’ve got quite a bit of work to do tonight to be able to score points this weekend, but we’ve still got another practice session to go. We’ll try to fine-tune things ahead of Qualifying, and then our long-run pace looked ok today, so hopefully we’ll be stronger during the race.

The car is responding well to these kinds of track temperatures, and we always seem to do better in the dark than in the day. The long runs are not looking bad either, so overall a pretty decent Friday.

I didn’t do FP1, I only drove in FP2 so it was good to get to know this car on this track – it felt interesting. I think we were a bit slower than what we would’ve hoped for but we have some time now to look at it and analyze what we need to change to be a bit more competitive tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll be able to get out of Q1 and be competing in Q2.

I always adapt super quick with this Formula 1 car. I think the style of driving with this Formula 1 car is kind of my strong point because I always brake late, I’m very confident and really aggressive. We had a great run where we completed all the laps and were quick as well. The most important thing is to execute all the things I need to with the team, learn as much as I can, but then as well show performance and that’s what I want to do - show the team what I can do.

I don’t think we had the pace today that we did last weekend, but you know it’s only Friday, we can still find it in the car and hopefully be better tomorrow. It’s all about the long run anyway, we want to qualify well but the important fight is on Sunday, so the focus is getting the car in the right window for that. You might always see surprises but we’re trying to prepare as well as we can for qualifying and the race and we’ll see what happens.

It was a really enjoyable experience today. We got a few curveballs thrown at us, which made things a little bit more challenging and obviously a lot of information that isn’t part of driving the car that I had to digest – but all-in-all I felt it was a successful first FP1. I got a lot of tests done for the team and hope those will be a good help for them for this weekend. For me, every lap I get in the car I think I make progress. so hopefully I get another shot next year and just keep improving.

It was tough out there today, but we will make the necessary changes to be able to give our best tomorrow in Quali. The top 10 are quite impressive in terms of speed here and I’d say we were still quite far off this pace. However, anything can happen, and we will push until the very end.

It was a really good FP1 session today. We kept to the run plan: we wanted to try a few things with the car early on and it felt pretty good out there. After that, I also had a Soft tyre run which was nice. It was my first laps with the AMR22 and my first proper dry laps in a Formula One car and I really enjoyed it. Now, I look forward to working with the team again in the post-season test on Tuesday.

The grip felt higher than expected but there's still some time to find from my side. Hopefully we can make a good step forward tomorrow as I get more up to speed and dialled in.