Jaime Alguersuari, 16th: “It was a busy day, in which I did a lot of laps, especially in the morning, when I completed the most of any driver. We concentrated on car set-up for the race, looking at solutions to improve its pace. It is not so clear where we stand just yet, although I think we can expect qualifying to be tough again, while in the race we can be better. I tried both types of tyre, but I do not feel I have a clear picture of the different qualities of the two of them. I think on Sunday, the behaviour of the Supersoft will be one of the key elements that decides what sort of race we can have.”
Sebastien Buemi, 18th: “We ran a different strategy to normal in terms of our work programme, running the Supersoft tyre right from the morning session. I was not very happy with the handling of the car at first and, during the day we made some quite drastic changes to the set-up. Towards the end of the afternoon, I was getting near the limit, so I think the next step is to go back very slightly on these set-up changes to do better tomorrow. In terms of performance, I would say we are in a similar position to where we were at the last two races, which means we lack a little bit of pace. It was good that the track conditions did not seem to change much over the day, which will make it easier for us to analyse the data we have gathered.”
Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): “Both drivers completed their programme for the day, Jaime ahead of schedule which is why he stopped early this afternoon. We ran the day slightly differently to many Fridays, already doing long runs in the morning session, as we were concerned there was a chance of rain in the afternoon. We focussed mainly on race set-up, doing long runs with both tyre compounds, so that we can now aim to have a good race pace for Sunday. Both the Supersoft and Soft tyres behaved well, possibly aided by the relatively low ambient temperature today and I think this will mean we could see various different strategies applied during the race. Today, the track remained quite stable compared to previous Fridays here, so I do not expect too many surprises from that point of view tomorrow or Sunday.”
