Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

We had a good day and learned a lot about this track, but there’s still plenty of work ahead of us until Sunday. Our performance was good, however, we mustn’t underestimate our competitors as I think they have more to show tomorrow. The field is tight, the track was quite dirty and slippery today, and I expect to see quite a significant evolution between today and qualifying. Degradation is going to be the main talking point of the weekend. Even a small difference in how you take some of the corners can make a huge difference in terms of degradation, so it should make for an interesting race.

A very good start to the weekend in terms of competitiveness. The track is very challenging and the conditions are tough, so I feel there's still a lot of lap time to find. I'm not completely happy with the balance of the car yet, but I'm super happy with our overall competitiveness. Tomorrow, I think Qualifying is going to be very short and sharp, with only a few laps available on the tyres, but I'm looking forward to it. I think we have a good car this weekend and that we can fight at the front.

An interesting first day here at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Nice to get our first laps in around this circuit, it's a fun track and an interesting challenge in terms of layout and track surface. We're struggling more than we'd like to, but we made some progress going into FP2. We've still got quite a bit more to solve if we want to be competitive, but we'll look at the data this evening and see what we can do going into FP3 and Qualifying tomorrow.

I think we had a pretty decent start today. We began well; the track was quite tricky as it was very hot with a lot of degradation, so there are a few things, particularly with the tyres, that we will need to analyse tonight. It was warmer in FP2 and a different programme that we were running, so it is quite difficult to compare the progress between the two sessions. There are still a few things we need to understand better ahead of tomorrow, but we have had two positive sessions, which is good.

It was a challenging day overall, with very little grip available on track. Finding the right balance wasn’t easy but that appeared to be a common theme across the field. Throughout the sessions we explored a couple of different set?up directions, and now the focus is on understanding the data and identifying the right compromise. We don’t seem too far off the pace but we know there’s still work to do to put the car in a better place for tomorrow.

That’s Friday at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia done. It was a reasonable day for us. From FP1 into FP2, we made a solid amount of progress, which meant we finished the day well. Our Quali sims and longer runs felt pretty good. But we still have a lot to find overnight and a lot more to understand about racing here. The true long-run performance across the grid, including for us, is still a bit of an unknown for everyone, but it feels like we could be in the mix.  

The circuit is a cool one to drive, but we’re finding the grip and high tyre degradation are really challenging. We need to understand both better overnight to put us in a better position ahead of Qualifying. Our goal is to build on today’s positive momentum and extract as much performance as possible to ensure we’re competitive.

It was a really cool experience to get out on track for the first time here at the PETRONAS Sepang International Circuit. I’ve never driven here before and it’s great to do so given how iconic this place is. The support we’ve had here as a team is also amazing so thanks for all the fans for coming out today and over the weekend.

With these warm conditions, combined with the aggressive tarmac and the characteristics of the circuit, the tyre degradation throughout practice was high. That was as we expected coming into the weekend but with the amount of overheating on the tyres, it slightly neutralises the performance of any extra downforce we’ve added with our update. The cars are operating in quite a different window to what we usually do, and I don’t think we quite got ours into the place that we needed today. We will look to get on top of that overnight and hopefully, if we do so, we can be in the fight at the front for the rest of the weekend.

We have had a decent first day on track here in Malaysia. The PETRONAS Sepang International Circuit is incredible to drive! It is fast and flowing so it’s super cool. We were able to complete lots of running across both sessions and worked through a full programme too. We gathered plenty of data, both useful for understanding the new update we’ve brought here and for helping us make improvements over the rest of the weekend here in Malaysia.

We’ve still got a lot of work to do though. The Red Bulls look the fastest on both the single lap and the long run, with McLaren and Ferrari also competitive on higher fuel in particular. The track was quite low grip today and it is likely that it will improve into Saturday and Sunday. We will work hard tonight to find improvements overnight and do our best come qualifying tomorrow afternoon.

It's been a fairly positive day here at the Bahrain GP. The track is fun to drive but very hard on tyres, particularly given the fact it hasn't been resurfaced in a few years. It's also extremely hot here in Malaysia, which is physically tough. However, our training and preparation should put us in a strong position ahead of Qualifying tomorrow, where tyre management will be key.

It's good to be back in Malaysia and it always brings nice memories back for me having made my debut at this track in 2017. Nine years later, we are back, and it is safe to say not much has changed with the track still enjoyable to drive and the conditions still very hot and very humid, which brings its challenges inside the car. I would say it's been a decent Friday for us where we are in the mix inside the top ten on the timesheets. The track was generally low grip, as expected, and it's clear that it's going to be tough on the tyres. Our car is in a good place, and we just built things up throughout the day, trying different ideas on both high and low fuel, as normal for a Friday with a few tweaks and improvements to make. We're well prepared and we're looking forward to taking on the rest of the weekend.

We’ve had a good couple of practice sessions today. This track is quite different to the others we’ve been to recently, although funnily enough, it’s actually quite similar to Bahrain. Looking ahead to tomorrow, the pressure is off a little bit, which means I can go out there and have a bit of fun. So far, I’m really enjoying this track because there are plenty of opportunities around here, and the rain can be very unpredictable. Tyre degradation will also be a big talking point, so we’ll see what happens as there’s likely to be a mixture of strategies as all the teams continue to collect data.

It was an interesting day, and thankfully the issue we had at the end of FP2 didn’t cost us time. We had a few items to test going from FP1 to FP2, and, overall, we can be quite satisfied with our work. There are still some areas where we can improve, so we’ll work through the data tonight and try to make a few steps forward for tomorrow. But overall, it was a good day and a positive start to the weekend.

Coming back to Sepang after so many years meant there was plenty to learn again, and the heat definitely added another challenge. We worked through the programme and gathered a lot of information, but there are still a few areas we need to understand a bit better. We'll go through everything overnight and see where we can find a bit more grip and balance.

It was a positive day. First of all, it’s an amazing track to drive again. I remembered it back then as awesome, but driving it again is pure joy every lap. I had fun today, it’s been positive, and we improved the car from FP1 to FP2. Although we still have work to do tonight, we look healthy on the car-side, and it’s performing as it should, so it’s been positive and we need to keep going like that.

We haven't had time to analyse anything in depth as we have just got out of the car.

We do need to work on finding more grip and optimising the setup of the car for the rest of the weekend. There is a lot of tyre degradation with extreme temperatures and a rough tarmac.

It’s been a tough day for us, to be honest. We looked a bit less competitive than what we were probably expecting in low-fuel. On high-fuel, it looks a bit better, but in general, it’s been a tough day for us. On my side, I’ve been learning the track as well and I feel like I’ve made progress, but in FP2, I felt a bit of a lack in confidence, which adds up to a lot of lap time around here. I’m confident we can do a better job tomorrow.

Very difficult Friday for us. Unfortunately, we see that on this track we are back to performing at the level that we were, towards the end of the grid, unless we find something extraordinary going into the weekend. We did some setup changes that helped in FP2, but we continue to struggle at high speed, long corners which also affects our degradation on such a rough tarmac. We’ll keep working on solutions for tomorrow and Sunday.

This is such a unique track and it's really physical to drive. The car doesn't feel great yet, so we've got a lot of work to do overnight. We made some changes ahead of FP2 to improve our low speed, but we lost a bit of the medium and high speed, which had actually felt better than expected. Hopefully we get some rain or something unpredictable this weekend that we can take advantage of.

We had a specific plan for the day on my side of the garage, and executed it well, with our focus firmly on high fuel running and optimising race pace. With the grid penalties from Baku, and also changing some power unit components here, we know that we'll have to pass cars and try to make our way through the field on Sunday. So, it makes a lot of sense to get in the best possible shape for the race, as we know that even if we were to make it to Q3, we will be towards the back anyway. We tried a lot of things and different set-ups and the pace looked relatively competitive and comparable to others. It was nice coming to a new track also, which is a lot of fun to drive, even on high fuel. It will be a challenge for everyone with tyre degradation, with the heat and roughness of the asphalt. It's easy to overheat the tyres which should make the race interesting with possible different strategy options. This may also help given we'll be starting lower down the field, so an added variable could be beneficial.