United States Grand Prix 2021 – Practice

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: Today has been difficult, with tyre management dominating most of our running. We didn’t get it quite right this afternoon and we’ve got a lot to go through tonight to work out a better approach to race pace in the hot conditions. In FP1 the pace was quite good and so fundamentally the car isn’t too bad, but we do need to find a better compromise for race stint pace.

George has fitted a new power unit this weekend and so will start at the back of the grid and this obviously increases the importance of his race pace this weekend.

Fortunately, the bumps on the circuit aren’t too bad and haven’t compromised our running too much. They can cause a few issues if abused and so we will need to continue to treat them with some respect.

The circuit remains an interesting and exciting challenge and we are looking forward to taming it better tomorrow.

George Russell: It’s great to be back here in the USA and driving around the incredible Circuit of the Americas track. The race here was sorely missed last year. Nevertheless, we had a tricky day today dealing with the high temperatures and difficult track conditions. We’ve got plenty to review overnight and will be working hard and aiming to solve some issues ahead of FP3 and Qualifying tomorrow.

Nicholas Latifi: It’s been a tricky day, but despite that, I’ve really enjoyed getting my first proper laps in at the Circuit of The Americas. It’s a fun track to drive, especially that first sector. I think there’s definitely some work we can do overnight to improve the feeling of the car for both low and high fuel runs. The conditions we’ve had today have obviously been quite different to what we’ve experienced over the last few races with much hotter track temperatures, so that presents some challenges. Hopefully we can make some gains, and I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow.