Belgium Grand Prix 2021 – Practice

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: Although it was cool and cloudy all day, the practice sessions were mostly dry and the biggest limitation to the day’s running were the red flags late in FP2. These disruptions meant that a lot of teams didn’t do much high fuel running during the day.

We got through most of our programme and both drivers were reasonably happy during the day. Understanding the compromises that need to be made to get the best overall lap time is often the biggest challenge at this circuit and although we haven’t got it quite right yet, we know what we need to do tonight to get the right balance.

The weather looks likely to play its part over the next couple of days with both qualifying and the race susceptible to rain. We will be looking to take advantage of any opportunity which that presents.

George Russell: I am happy to be back; it has been four weeks since I last drove and so it was great to get straight back into it. I think we have been very fortunate today with the weather, we got the driest parts of the day in both sessions which has been good for us and for the fans. Keeping the tyre temperatures alive and maintaining confidence in the wet parts of the track is going to be really tricky if we continue to get mixed conditions.

We have a lot to improve overnight as I think we are a little off the pace, but we have some ideas up our sleeves and so we’ll work through those. There is always a compromise and never anything that will just give you performance, so there will be some interesting conversations to see which direction we will go.

Nicholas Latifi: It’s great to be back behind the wheel at such a great track to drive a Formula One car. It’s been a bit of a disrupted day with the mixed conditions, so I think we still have some more pace to find. I’m happy with our low fuel pace, but it was harder to gauge high fuel with the red flags interrupting the session, although everyone will be in a similar position with that. We have some work to do overnight and the unpredictable weather can make decisions more challenging. I don’t particularly mind what the weather brings tomorrow, this track is always fun in dry conditions, but the rain provides more opportunities which we need to make the most of.