Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Overall it was a positive Friday for the team. The car looks to be back on the pace this weekend and the track characteristics seem to be suiting us better.
It’s only Friday and tomorrow is not going to be easy, as the field is super tight with several cars within a couple of tenths. We’ll keep trying to find more performance, especially for the long runs where I think there is more room for improvement.
It’s great to drive in front of this amazing crowd here in Monza! Let’s keep pushing!

A good day in terms of progress made. I don’t think we started off in the best position but we made a few good changes and it’s definitely helped us with our overall pace, which is a good thing. However, we’re still a little way off being as competitive as we want to be. We’ll work hard overnight to try and improve on that, and we have a few ideas. But a nice way to end the day, and if we can find some more, I’ll be confident we can have a decent result.

It was a shame that we ended FP2 the way that we did as I felt that it has otherwise been a positive day. I had some understeer around the exit to the corner; I thought I had the car under control but then touched the gravel and it was game over. As this happened at the end of my session it meant that we only lost around two laps and it didn’t make too much difference to my programme. Aside from this, the car was performing really well and I feel comfortable with it. We have been working really hard and made some positive steps during the session. For now, the Team are looking at the damage to the car. We will be in good shape tomorrow and in a strong position for the rest of the weekend.

End of Friday, and we’ve had a reasonable day. I think we have some things still to work on and improve on, but the one-lap pace seems to be quite reasonable. Let’s see how we go, there are some things to analyse but not a bad first day.

From my side it could have probably been a little bit better today, there is still some fine tuning to do from the low speed to the high speed, but I am, of course, quite confident we will get there. We have been trying a few different wing levels and I think we still need to analyse which way to go, it is sometimes a tricky thing around Monza. We were a little bit interrupted with our programme in FP2 so it was hard to get a read on a few things. On the short run I was blocked a bit in sector two and then on the long run we didn’t get to do a lot of laps, so you don’t really get a good idea but that’s the same for everyone. We need to see what happens when everyone turns up their engines for qualifying, from our side we can do a better job but also today hasn’t been the end of the world.

It was a rather tricky day overall. Our performance was quite good, however I struggled with the car balance. We will have to work on that for tomorrow, especially for the short runs, as with high fuel it seems to be going better.

The low downforce set up is difficult and I don’t think it feels particularly good for anyone, but despite this, the car feels okay. We’re doing an alternate programme to most people, just trying to make sure we understand the Medium tyre going into Q2 tomorrow, as this is going to be important in trying to set ourselves up properly to make it into Q3. There are slightly different issues I’m feeling with the car but nothing I can’t deal with, so we’ll look at these ahead of tomorrow. What’s important is that we’re in the mix but I don’t want to speak too soon. For FP3 tomorrow, we need to weigh up and see what everyone else is doing, helping us to understand where we want to focus on.

It was a good day at Monza and the adrenaline was pumping. It's always nice to be back here. Very unique on a low downforce set-up. I'm happy to be back, but Lance did have a problem and we had to adapt to using just one set of tyres per session. It's the same for everybody and it will be tight tomorrow – from P6 to P16 it could be split by four tenths. We need to be sharp tomorrow.

It’s great to be back in Monza and driving the car at these high speeds and with low downforce levels. The characteristics are very different to what we had last week in Zandvoort, and that’s something that it’s fun to adapt to. The car was feeling reasonably good, but we have some improvements to make on the soft tyre. The high fuel pace was looking pretty strong, so the focus tomorrow will be on finding more speed for qualifying.

FP2 with the long runs were cut short by the red flag, we had two, so they ate into the run plan a little bit and we don’t have all the information and data for Sunday yet. Over one lap, I felt quite confident and good in the car, but we didn’t really get into the high-fuel run, so it’s hard to comment. We know with the alternative tire allocation, we’ll have to see how that changes things. I imagine that will change the dynamic a little bit and make it more difficult for us to survive Q1. That’s the challenge tomorrow, but we’re preparing and getting ready for it.

We had a good Friday. We showed a little better pace I think than we have done in recent races, on Friday at least, but we know it’s only Friday. We’ve tried looking good in FP2 before and then in FP3 and qualifying it’s a different story. Nonetheless, it’s been a positive day and of course I hope we can maintain the pace over one lap. Still, on high fuel it didn’t look great but we need to take what we can.

Racing in front of so many of our colleagues from our factory in Hinwil and with so many Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake shirts on the stands is special, we could feel the support from the fans and hopefully we can repay their love this weekend. Our Friday hasn’t been the smoothest, starting from a small software issue, which we fixed but which cost us some time in the first session. We made some progress in FP2 and we still have one session of practice ahead of us to get on top of the setup before qualifying. We need to get some work done tonight and make a step forward to be as competitive as we can be in qualifying.

It’s great to be driving in Monza again as it’s a very special place for me and it’s also my semi-home race since I live in Milan. On-track it’s been a pretty solid if unspectacular day for us, where we ran through a specific programme filled with plenty of learning for the team. The timesheets are of course not where we aim to be, that said, we know the areas we need to improve and hopefully tomorrow we will be in a stronger position. There’s a long way to go in the weekend and now we’ll analyse the data from today and find a good direction on set-up ready for Qualifying.

It was a normal day today. We completed some test items in FP1, and normal running in FP2, and there’s still more car performance to come. We know our limitations and need to find a couple of tenths, to be able to be in the top 10. We have made a big step in straight-line speed, which we usually suffer with, and now we’re probably in the top part of the field. Because of the red flag, we only managed to do a couple of long-run laps, so we need to see how we go with them tomorrow. I definitely want to make it to Q2, possibly even Q3, so we’ll look deeper into the data tonight and be ready for qualifying.

It’s always special to drive here in Monza, such an iconic track, and it’s good to be back driving in front of the Italian fans, especially after the cancellation of Imola earlier this season. On track, our Friday was a busy one with plenty to get through. We completed our programme but I think at the moment there are quite a few different things we need to look at in order to be more competitive on this high-speed track. The key will be to get the set-up right ahead of tomorrow for what will be a busy Qualifying session. We’ve got work to do tonight and I know we’ll all be pushing to be in a good position for Sunday’s race.

It has been pretty tricky today, I’m sure everyone is finding it tricky with the low downforce that we run here, but there’s definitely some time to find for tomorrow. I don’t think we’re too far away, but we want to make a few steps forward. I’m sure tomorrow is going to be a case of avoiding the chaos that Monza usually brings, getting the tyres in the right window and putting in good laps and hopefully that will leave us in a good spot. The goal tomorrow for me is to take it step by step. The first goal is to get to Q2 and then think about the rest after that.

It was a relatively normal Friday programme for me. The reliability was strong, and we got through the work that we needed to, checking off the different tests we had to do. There’s lots of learning from today, and we will have a bit of work tonight to try and improve for Saturday – as we always manage to do. I know that the team will do great work overnight to improve the set-up and car balance, so that we can be quicker tomorrow.

I really enjoyed being back out in the AMR23 today; this car is just fantastic. I expected the stability to be slightly compromised by such a low downforce set-up, but I was pleased with how the car was handling and felt confident to push almost straight away. Due to the Alternative Tyre Allocation, we only had one set of tyres throughout the session, but we managed to get through the entire run plan on the Medium compound, so I’m pleased with what we accomplished.
I spend a lot of time on the simulator helping the team with development work, so I think being back behind the wheel gives me a really good marker of how the car is developing and helps with the correlation between the two. I can definitely take what I’ve learned today back to Silverstone and continue to support the team’s car development.
I really appreciate the team giving me this opportunity and guiding me through the session; it’s been a pleasure to work with everyone trackside again.

We completed everything we wanted today, which is important, and we still have some more time tomorrow during FP3, to prepare for qualifying. The change of tyre compounds for qualifying is something I haven’t experienced in Formula 1, but I’ll just focus on tyre warm-up to extract the maximum out of them, especially from the hard compound tyre in Q1. Yuki’s been great as a teammate, and Daniel offered all the advice he could before the race last week, so they’ve been super supportive, and so has the entire team, trying to get me up to speed as quickly as possible. It’s just about improving and focusing on feeling comfortable with everything behind the wheel and operating the car.

It’s great to be in Monza, our home race, and the atmosphere is incredible, but despite all the enthusiasm, our work today fell short of what we expected. We had a technical issue at the beginning of FP1 but, in general, I had the feeling something was not right throughout the sessions. We have to understand what is wrong and make a step forward tomorrow: we will all work hard to do that, to have a good performance in qualifying and bring home a good result for the team on Saturday and Sunday.

I don't know where we stand as I haven't been able to complete a lap yet, as a fuel system issue stopped me from setting a time in FP2.? The team collected some data from Felipe and Fernando, at least, so we have something to work on for tomorrow.