Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

It was a solid first day, everything felt good from the start and I was comfortable in the car.
The most important thing for us to do tomorrow will be to go with the track and anticipate what the evolution will be like. We will focus on optimising our balance and try to make a step forward before qualifying.
It looks good for now but we have to wait and see how it will look tomorrow, I expect the field to be much tighter.

Today was a little bit messy because of what happened in FP1: we had some damage to the floor and chassis, which took a bit longer to fix meaning I had a bit of catch up to do. The turnaround was very quick and Team did a great job but we ended up losing a bit of running time in FP2. Normally I would have liked to have had a few more laps and I didn’t manage to do many long runs but I think that the laps we did were good. I think we know what we have to focus on and we have a few things to fine tune but we are looking forward to tomorrow.

It’s been a couple of tough weeks leading to today and to be honest I’m very happy I could complete both sessions feeling reasonably comfortable. I will continue to take it step by step to make sure I come to qualifying and to the race in the best form possible. 
I’m confident tomorrow will be better and overall, the car seems to be in a good place this weekend. We’ll try to maximise everything from body and machine!

The car felt good today. I was happy with the balance, and we had a straightforward day gathering plenty of data.
We've been pretty strong on one-lap pace this season, so it's positive to see we've kept that up here. But let's keep our feet on the ground because it's Free Practice and we don't know what the others have been doing.
Nevertheless, a positive start to the weekend and I'm looking forward to getting back into the car for Qualifying tomorrow.

It's always tricky here at Albert Park – the track rubbers in quite a lot and the grip changes. That led to me running through the gravel at Turn 10 during FP1, so we had to change the floor during the session.
Our programme was a little compromised due to that, but FP2 ran smoothly and we completed everything we set out to do.
It's always satisfying to be towards the top of the timesheet, but we won’t draw any conclusions from today as it's only Free Practice and there are still plenty of variables to consider.
We have a lot of data to now analyse in order to give us the best chance of getting a positive result in Qualifying.

Wir sind heute an die Grenzen gegangen, und ich hatte ein paar Schrecksekunden auf der Strecke. Am Ende war aber alles unter Kontrolle. In der ersten Session ging es sehr eng zu, in FP2 lagen die Fahrer etwas weiter auseinander. Bei meinem letzten Versuch auf den Soft-Reifen fuhr ich eine wirklich gute Runde, aber in den letzten beiden Kurven kam ich zu weit raus und zog mir einen kleinen Schaden am Frontflügel zu. Ansonsten hätten wir die Session wohl auf Platz 3 beendet. Wir versuchen, das Auto besser zu verstehen und haben nach Saudi-Arabien einige Änderungen vorgenommen. Jede einzelne Runde ist wertvoll, weil wir mehr über das Auto lernen und versuchen, es in den Sweet-Spot zu bekommen. Das Team in der Fabrik wird hart im Simulator arbeiten, um mehr Performance aus dem Auto herauszuholen. Mal sehen, was der morgige Tag bringt. Wenn man am nächsten Tag zurückkommt, kann es oft ganz anders aussehen.

First day in Melbourne. All-in-all, not a bad day. We were a bit up-and-down but there were definitely some positive signs. We’ll have a look and see what we can find for tomorrow – but it’s been nice to be driving back at home. We’ve got a few things to look at and try to work on but I'm feeling optimistic.

It was a tricky Friday in general and overall, I think we have some work to do overnight. Melbourne is also quite difficult when you move to the afternoon because the visibility is super poor with the low sun in your face. I think we are in a good place this season with the car though and we should be looking strong for tomorrow. We need to put it all together because it will be important to qualify high up. Degradation wise it looks quite high on the long runs; we need to look at that and it will be interesting to see what the best strategy will be this weekend. I think Ferrari look strong, this circuit seems to be better for them, they have been competitive in the long runs. They will be a challenge to beat this weekend, generally they are quite fast around here so it could be interesting to see how we match up.

A reasonable day. We struggled to find a bit of confidence given the gusts of wind, so we didn’t get the best feeling, but I think the pace is reasonable. We’re in the mix, which is a good sign. It should make our lives exciting tomorrow – but we’ve still got a lot of work to do to make the most of it.

As a first day, we’re in good shape compared to the last two races. The team did a fantastic job in terms of preparation, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Obviously, the field is very tight in qualifying as we know, so we’ll finetune the small details, and I know those things will come and we’ll be able to put it all together tomorrow. Now it’s maximum preparation tonight, I’ll push as much as I can and hopefully, we make it to Q3!

It is always great to be back in Melbourne. The fans bring an incredible sense of passion which makes coming back to the track exciting. Today was about understanding our upgrades and the track evolution, and I found a good rhythm with the car. After both sessions, this feels like a car I could push with, and shows the efforts the team, both here and back in Hinwil, has been making. We had a few setting changes between FP1 and FP2, and each time we develop the car, it seems to be going in the right direction. Our front wing upgrade is designed to help with the overall car balance – and there is still more to extract and learn about the car over the weekend. As we continue to finetune our package, I am looking forward to the rest of the weekend and believe we might be fighting closer to the points.

It was a tricky session in FP1 and I paid the price for it. I ran a little wide and went up onto the exit curb and bottomed out when I landed, so it’s frustrating. I think we have a car that’s quite quick this weekend, so it’s disappointing to not have been able to participate in FP2. We don’t have a spare chassis and I know the team are working hard on what repairs can be made, so we’ll know more soon.
I have to be totally honest and say that no driver would want to give up his seat. I would never want anything like this to happen. Logan has always been a consummate professional and a team player from day one, and this won't be an easy one for him to take. At this point though, I cannot dwell on the situation and my only job now is to maximise our potential this weekend and work with the whole team to make sure we do the best job possible.

Firstly, it was just nice to be back on track – it’s a good one. For myself, Oscar and Valtteri it's obviously emotional. The crowd is crazy like you’d get at a rock concert, there are so many people here for a Practice day. I think Albert Park has always done a good job at keeping it full all day. You come to watch on a Friday and you don’t just see F1, it’s V8, Porsche, F2, 3 – it’s a lot. It's good that Aussie motorsport is strong, and it’s reaching areas like Valtteri in Finland.
I drove here in 2022 when they just made the track changes. It’s a lot faster than it used to be, it’s good. I think as a team we started the morning on the front foot, and I think this afternoon, the others found a little more. I think we’re definitely still within a shot of Q3 tomorrow. There are a lot of corners where, because it’s still a street circuit obviously, you put it on the edge. I think the conditions and grip were pretty good and it was fun to get into it. There’s a little bit of work to do tonight but nothing too crazy. As always, I think there’s a bit of finetuning of the car, and it should give us a good chance for tomorrow. In terms of race pace, with the little long run that we did, it seems okay. Let’s qualify in the top 10 and then it’ll all get easier from there.

There was good grip out there compared to last year but the wind picked up this afternoon, making it a little more unpredictable. Generally, on low fuel, we have a decent car with the good news being that we’re at the fine-tuning stage, however, I obviously lost that Medium tyre on the spin and didn’t get a high fuel run. Despite this, we’re in a good place ahead of tomorrow and there’s still some more to get out of the car. As a team, we’re on the backfoot a bit this weekend but we’ll do what we can.
This is the hardest moment I can remember in my career and it's absolutely not easy. I am however completely here for the team and will continue to contribute in any way that I can this weekend to maximise what we can do.

Today was really productive for understanding the car, especially in light of the new upgrades we brought to Australia. We focused on fulfilling our program and on set-up work where we have taken a small step forward: but there is definitely more to unlock tonight. We are aiming for a minimum of Q2, but if we get everything right on Saturday, Q3 could be possible for us. Outside of the track, it's been absolutely brilliant to be in Melbourne and witness all the passion from the fans. The energy is always great, and I hope we can give the crowd some excitement this weekend: I’m looking forward to it.

It’s been a busy day for us here in Melbourne. We had a couple of small issues on the car in Free Practice 1, which limited our running a little bit. We managed to fix those ahead of the second session to have a much better feeling in the car. The overall balance was in a good place. We were probably stronger on the Medium tyre and that means we have some work to do on the Softs, which we seemed to have more difficulties with. There’s some work ahead of us understand how best to get the tyres in the right window ahead of Qualifying. We know the situation we are in and we know it will be challenging so we will keep working hard to improve what we have in our hands. Tyre degradation looked quite high on long runs, which could mean the race will be more eventful.

It’s been very windy today and I think that’s why we’ve seen so many people go off; it makes it pretty tricky out there. It’s such a high-speed circuit now and there’s no margin for error, so you can get caught out very easily. Our Friday was fine with no issues, so it was the usual program to clean some things up for tomorrow. I feel our one-lap pace wasn’t shining today so we have a bit of homework to do to find some performance over one lap. I think in the long run, I felt better than on my low-fuel run, so that’s nice for a change as that wasn’t always the case last year but we’re trying to optimize both as much as we can.

Today was productive and it was good to get out on track in front of full grandstands on a Friday, which is always the case with the fans here in Melbourne. The field is very tight, as it tends to be at Albert Park, so it will be important to extract the maximum from the package, as it could be the difference between one or two rows on the grid. There’s still some things we can improve ahead of tomorrow and we will keep working hard overnight to get prepared for Qualifying. It was interesting today to test the new softer compound tyre for this event compared to last year. In general, this is a low degradation circuit, so these changes could offer up some different strategy options and opportunities for the Grand Prix on Sunday.

Heute fühlte es sich auf der Strecke nicht gut an. Wir haben den Tag mit einem guten Gefühl begonnen, und im FP1 fühlte sich das Auto generell gut an. Tatsächlich hat sich das Auto auf dem ersten Run so gut wie noch nie in diesem Jahr angefühlt. Um unseren Lernprozess fortzusetzen, haben wir in FP2 einige große Änderungen vorgenommen, die das Auto leider verschlechtert haben. Es war schwierig, aber wir können aus dem ersten Training viel Positives mitnehmen. Wir werden über Nacht hart arbeiten, um uns für morgen zu verbessern.

We had two good free practice sessions today so I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow. It’s a very tight field so we could be anywhere almost, certainly in the mix for P10 or P11. I got a run on the soft tire but I didn’t set a time on it – I messed up my laps – but on the medium compound it looks promising so we’ll look at the sectors. There’s some pace in there.