Jaime Alguersuari, 15th: “This was a good test day for us and I completed a lot of laps. We had a busy programme, trying some things for the future and also various different set-up scenarios. I did a long run on the Option tyre this afternoon and we are still looking better in race trim than in the qualifying simulation. Based on this, I would say we have the possibility to score some more points on Sunday, although the weather is looking uncertain. Tomorrow morning we can look to improve the car a bit more for the race and in the afternoon, qualifying will again be the limiting factor for us, because it will be very difficult to get ahead of our closest opponents, but I am very motivated for the race.”
Sebastien Buemi, 24th: “I had a misfire from early on in the morning session, but we continued to run anyway. Then in the afternoon it got worse and the mechanics had to strip down the car to trace the cause of it, so I could not run in FP2. In the morning session, I was able to evaluate the experimental Soft compound tyres that Pirelli supplied us here. However, despite the lack of laps, I still believe we can move forward tomorrow, when there is also a chance the weather could be different with the threat of rain. So, overnight we have to fix the car then decide on what set-up to run if it is wet and despite today’s difficulties, I still believe we can have a competitive weekend.”
Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): “We ran a good programme with Jaime today, doing some important testing in terms of set-up work in the morning. Then, in the afternoon, we concentrated on race set-up and he did a very long run on the Option tyre, which will provide useful data for the rest of the weekend. Unfortunately, Sebastien’s day did not go smoothly, as we had an issue on the car which prevented him from running in FP2. Now all our efforts are focussed on finding and fixing the problem before tomorrow. Hopefully, we can take elements of what we learned from Jaime’s data today and transpose it onto Sebastien’s car for tomorrow.”
