Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: We got through a lot of work today and made some good progress with the tyres. With rain forecast for tomorrow, we opted to use 5 new sets of slicks today in order to maximise our preparation for the race. We had a solid FP1 with both drivers feeling comfortable with the car and making very similar balance comments. In FP2 Alex flat-spotted his main set of Soft tyres before he had a chance to set a laptime and so he finished at the bottom of the timesheet. However, although we were struggling for overall grip today, we know that there is a lot more to come from him. Alex also suffered a telemetry failure during his high fuel running and so his session finished early as a precaution. Nicholas had no serious car issues and made good progress on low fuel before successfully completing his high fuel run.
The outcome of the rest of the weekend will likely be dictated as much by tomorrow’s weather as the car performance and we hope that a wet qualifying will present us with an opportunity at a circuit where overtaking is very difficult.
Nicholas Latifi: Overall it’s been a tricky day with the track conditions and temperature which have probably been the same for everybody. We struggled to get the balance dialled in, so there’s still a bit of lap time to extract if we can bring the car a little bit more together. There are still a few things on my side to work on. Tomorrow could provide some opportunities with the mixed conditions so hopefully we can take advantage of that.
Alex Albon: We didn’t really do a proper short run and we had to cut the race run short, so it was not a smooth session today, but anyway we will go into tomorrow fresh. It’s likely to be wet, so it’ll be a bit of a reset for everyone and I don’t think today will hurt us too much.
No comment