Daniel Ricciardo, 11th: “Importantly, we made progress through the day, after the first session did not go too well. We couldn’t get the tyres to work properly, wheel spinning on the Prime, which overheated it, so we lacked grip. We knew what we needed to do, but it did not work out on track. The second session went better, as can be seen from the fact we moved up the time sheet. More important is the fact I’ve now got a better feeling with the car. We still need to make more progress and in terms of what we do to the car for tomorrow, we have a couple of options to choose from. We got a first impression of the tyres and I’d say the Option is better and seems to cope well with the hot conditions. Let’s say I don’t think anyone will do a one stop on Sunday and looking after the rear tyres will be a priority.”
Jean-Eric Vergne, 14th: “A very busy day for me and my mechanics. We started off the first practice session with me running an older car specification, based on the one I had in Shanghai, while Daniel ran the newer one. His worked better, so we switched to that for the afternoon session. It was definitely an improvement and we have made a good step forward, although we need to improve the balance still further for tomorrow. If we can make even more progress for FP3 then we will be in good shape. The tyres overheat very easily, so managing them is quite difficult and will be one of the keys to having a good race.”
Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): “Overall, this was an intensive day’s work for us as we had a few bits and pieces to evaluate. We are reasonably happy with what we achieved, made possible by the fact that both cars ran without any problems, completing a high number of laps. We were able to scan a few car configurations and set-up options for Sunday’s race. Having such a productive Friday was therefore a good start to the weekend and we now need to convert that into an increase in our pace tomorrow.”
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