Sebastien Buemi, 10th: “It’s always exciting to drive a new track for the first time and today I managed to do a lot of laps, with no issues on the car, so I could push myself to the limit, which is always a good thing. I think we have everything we need in terms of data and understanding to prepare ourselves for qualifying and the race. Therefore I am happy with the way today went overall, the car ran reliably and the team did a good job. Now it’s up to us to put everything together for qualifying. In terms of performance we hope we can continue the trend we saw in Korea a fortnight ago. The track is quite similar to what we saw on the simulator. It’s a beautiful circuit, I’m happy to be here and I hope we will have a lot of spectators on Saturday and Sunday.”
Jaime Alguersuari, 14th: “The track looks really nice and it’s a pleasure to drive it. The lap time makes it look like a short lap, because it is so quick, but from a driver’s point of view, it is very interesting. We tried a set-up today that did not suit me and I found it quite difficult to keep the car in a straight line out there. I did not feel comfortable and I felt I was on the edge. In the morning, I went over it, losing control and hitting the barrier with the rear of the car at Turn 9. The guys did a good job to get it all repaired for the start of the second session. I am sure we can have a better feeling for the car tomorrow and improve our position.”
Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): “Quite a good day for us, as we completed the bulk of our planned programme, doing a lot of laps, which delivered plenty of data for the rest of the weekend. The track layout is great and I’m sure all the drivers enjoyed it, as it presents a great challenge with its high speed corners and long straight. The cars ran well today but it is quite difficult to analyse their true performance, because as you can imagine, the track improvement was massive throughout the day, which is normal for a new circuit.”
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