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Nicholas Latifi:
"It was a difficult one today. It was very tricky, and I was
struggling to find the right balance with the car. We had different
issues in different practice sessions. FP1 was one thing and we tried to
solve it and went too far the other way. I wasn’t satisfied in FP2 on
the low or high fuel, so we have a lot of work to do tonight. We need to
dig into the data and see what we can find." |
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George Russell:
"It was obviously tricky conditions today and I think the track
temperature was up at about 48 degrees at some points in FP1, which is
incredibly hot. FP2 felt pretty good and our high fuel pace was better
than expected even with these gusty winds, so I was pleasantly surprised
by that. Equally the wind is changing so much at the moment, which
affects everybody a huge amount, but I believe our car is more sensitive
to these changes. Fingers crossed it is either calm or in a favourable
direction tomorrow and Sunday. I think it will be a long and tricky
race, but I am looking forward to it." |
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Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance:
"It was hot this afternoon, meaning that the tyre performance dominated
the FP1 running. Both George and Nicholas completed their programmes and
had no issues with the car. The cooler evening session offered more
suitable conditions for qualifying and race preparation and we were able
to complete useful running on both cars despite the shorter Free
Practice session format this year.
We have had a very successful day, have collected all the data we wanted
and had a first proper look at a qualifying and race simulation using
the race tyres for this weekend. The performance of the car is still
below what we would like, but we are making progress and we are
confident that we can push the car hard for the remainder of this
weekend, especially on Sunday.
George enjoyed a calm and well-constructed day during which he built-up
his confidence in the car, finishing with a well measured stint on the
qualifying C4 tyre. Nicholas made a few changes to his car ahead of FP2,
but the change of wind for the evening session dominated the balance and
he found it a little difficult to recover his momentum from FP1. He will
reset overnight and then use FP3 to get himself ready for the key
qualifying session." |
