Robert Kubica (7th): It was a fairly normal Friday for us. We tried to get as much information as we could and we were quite lucky with the weather because I think there was quite a lot of rain close to the track, but we got away with two dry sessions, which was what we needed. The track was pretty good straight away, so we were able to have consistent driving conditions throughout the day. We tried to get a feeling for the two tyre compounds and the different parts on the car.
Vitaly Petrov (5th): It was a good day of practice and I found a good balance with the car. I know this track well and, with the updates we have here, the car feels much better. In the morning we did some basic set-up work and in the afternoon I tried some new parts, including our new rear wing which has much more downforce. I ran with both tyre compounds and the track conditions were not too bad, which helped us. Tomorrow morning we still need to keep working away little by little to be ready for qualifying.
Technical Debrief with Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: It has been a very busy day for both cars – busier than normal because we have had a lot of parts to test and both drivers, car crews and engineers have done a very good job to get through the work load. Both drivers appear to be going well here, although they were running slightly different programmes today.
It can often be quite dirty off the racing line at this circuit, but it was better than usual. The track was in good condition from the start of the day, although it certainly improved in the afternoon.
We did a rear wing comparison with Vitaly and ran our floor upgrade with both cars. We also have a new front wing here and both cars will run with all these parts tomorrow.
We didn’t do a tyre comparison as such, but we did a lot of work with the super-soft tyre and ran it with high and low fuel to assess its qualifying and long run pace. Overall, it looks very good and we didn’t find any problems.
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