Drivers report from the first day of free practice of the Austrian Grand Prix Prix weekend, Round 9 of the 2015 Formula 1 World Championship at Red Bull Ring.
Kimi Raikkonen: “It was quite a messy day, but overall I had good feelings. In the morning we managed to have a few runs while in the afternoon, because of the weather conditions, we did not get to do many laps and never really got a proper qualifying simulation done. The day could have been a lot better, the situation now it’s a bit unknown, but it’s not too bad either. There is no point now in starting to guess where we are, we still have tomorrow morning to know, and I’m sure it will be ok.”
Sebastian Vettel: “It was a decent day. It is not entirely clear where we stand, as we didn’t have a lot of running due to the weather, in particular in the afternoon, but in general the car feels good. When I span at the end of the second session, I had an issue with brake distribution. It caught me by surprise, but it didn’t matter too much, as I only lost a couple of minutes, and in the end it didn’t make a lot of a difference. My plans for tomorrow? For sure I will watch the soccer match with the Team. Italy is playing stronger than expected, Germany is quite strong as well, so it should be a good match.”
Kevin Magnussen: “A pretty good day. We made some positive improvement with the car and now have better traction, better braking and more grip. It feels a lot more stable in the high speed corners so that’s good too. We’ve still got some work to do but I feel much happier with the car than I have recently.”
Jolyon Palmer: “It got a bit fruity out there with the downpour even if there was a surprising amount of grip in the wet right up until the point the car spun! The car actually seems pretty good here and it was a solid day for us. It feels like we’re making some good steps forward.”
Sebastian Vettel: “It was a decent day. It is not entirely clear where we stand, as we didn’t have a lot of running due to the weather, in particular in the afternoon, but in general the car feels good. When I span at the end of the second session, I had an issue with brake distribution. It caught me by surprise, but it didn’t matter too much, as I only lost a couple of minutes, and in the end it didn’t make a lot of a difference. My plans for tomorrow? For sure I will watch the soccer match with the team. Italy is playing stronger than expected, Germany is quite strong as well, so it should be a good match.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “It was quite a messy day, but overall I had good feelings. In the morning we managed to have a few runs while in the afternoon, because of the weather conditions, we did not get to do many laps and never really got a proper qualifying simulation done. The day could have been a lot better, the situation now it’s a bit unknown, but it’s not too bad either. There is no point now in starting to guess where we are, we still have tomorrow morning to know, and I’m sure it will be ok.”
Valtteri Bottas: “It was a bit of a tricky day in terms of car balance. Obviously with the rain in FP2, we struggled to set-up the car, but I’m sure before FP3 tomorrow we can still improve the car and our lap times. I think it was a good idea to go out in the rain to check the balance, because there’s a possibility of rain for the rest of the weekend. We now have a good idea of how the car works in wet conditions and we will know what adjustments we need to make if it does rain.”
Felipe Massa: “It wasn’t a perfect Friday due to the weather, but at least we had some laps in the wet as well as the dry to understand the car in both conditions, so it wasn’t bad. We couldn’t learn everything we would have liked because of the weather, but the feeling of the car was ok in the wet, with half the track very wet and the other half quite dry, so it was actually a reasonable Friday to understand the car. The track is much quicker than before because the asphalt grip is a little bit higher and the kerbs are flat, so you can use them a lot more than in the past. You can have a tricky moment if you use too much, but it’s up to you how much you use. Now we need to wait until tomorrow to understand where we are once everyone is on similar tyres and fuel loads.”
Carlos Sainz: “I think today was a very good day for us. Obviously it’s a bit difficult to make any conclusions as it’s only Friday, everyone’s run plans were different and we even had some rain, but we can be happy. It seems like every tyre is working well on this new tarmac – there’s a lot of grip and lap times are very quick compared to last year. It feels nice to drive here, it’s one of the smoothest surfaces I’ve ever driven on and the car feels great around here! Tonight we will continue to work hard and prepare for the rest of the weekend.”
Daniil Kvyat: “We can be satisfied with today, our practice sessions were very useful and I’d say we have enough data to be in good shape tomorrow. There was a lot going on in both FP1 and FP2 – we had some dry running, then it rained, then the sun came out again… So it’s been interesting! I’m feeling okay in the car and I think we can be positive for tomorrow.”
Fernando Alonso: “I quite like the new track surface – it’s very smooth and there are no bumps. We were also able to exploit the grip, which was quite good. This afternoon, we had the opportunity to run on the track after the rain – it only took 30 minutes for the circuit to dry out enough for us to fit dry-weather tyres. I think we need to be ready and focused for any opportunity if it rains on Sunday like it did this afternoon – we should try and take advantage of that.”
Jenson Button: “Even with the new asphalt, the camber changes in the corners make it tricky to drive around here. Plus, there are a lot of big, wide kerbs that you can use, but they wear the floor, which makes it difficult for everyone. We use all three different types of dry-weather compound today – and I still think it’s a bit up-in-the-air about which tyres will be best in the race. Then, on the Inters, we were one of the quickest cars, which was a positive. There are a lot of fast cars out there, so it’ll be tough for us to get into Q3 tomorrow, but there’s rain forecast for the rest of the weekend, which should give us some useful opportunities.”
Nico Rosberg: “There are some changes to the circuit this year with the new asphalt and kerbing; from my point of view those changes are pretty cool and it’s still a really enjoyable track to drive. The new asphalt seems to be suiting our car quite well, maybe better even than the old tarmac, but tyre usage will be the decisive factor this weekend as we saw quite a lot of graining during our dry running. In the wet this afternoon, I found a good balance with the car, so overall I’m pretty happy with our first day.”
Lewis Hamilton: “It was a tricky day getting up to speed and getting laps out on track. It started coming together this morning but then the rain in the second session meant we had to adapt our programme. Luckily, the high track temperatures meant the circuit dried out very quickly, so I was able to get more running on the ultra-soft tyre before the session finished and to get a feel for the balance and performance. We didn’t have any problems today, which is definitely a positive, and there’s definitely more to come. So I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.”
Romain Grosjean: “FP2 was a tricky session with the weather. The morning was not too bad. I was pretty happy with the car. This afternoon we focused more on the long run on high fuel. The car doesn’t feel too bad. It’s all about understanding the tires and avoiding the graining, and then getting them in the proper working range. We’re getting better and better with that.”
Esteban Gutierrez: “It was a very tricky day for us. It was not easy to have consistency, especially with the first practice. I managed to do some laps, but then we had a problem, which interrupted the whole session. It was the same in the second practice. We had only done a few laps and it started to rain, then at the end of the session I got held up by another issue. So, overall it was not a great day today, but we will try to do our best to recover for tomorrow. I’m looking forward to getting back out there and qualifying.”
Marcus Ericsson: “It was a decent day. It’s Friday, so we needed to run as many laps as possible in both practice sessions. The track is quite different with the new surface as well as the new kerbs. There was a lot to learn today. We were able to test three different compounds – the soft, supersoft and ultrasoft tyres. It was good to see the steps between them. FP2 was not ideal with the rain interrupting our programme. Nevertheless, we gathered some data today, and I am sure we can optimise things for tomorrow.”
Felipe Nasr: “In FP1 we were able to cover a decent mileage. I was able to see how the car behaves on the new surface on soft and supersoft tyres. It was important to understand the new tarmac and how much it is affecting the tyres. In terms of the car set-up, I am satisfied with the balance so far. I ran the practice engine, so I am sure there is more to come when I go back to the race engine from tomorrow on. In FP2 the heavy rain compromised our programme as we could not do high-fuel runs as planned. It is a bit of an unknown for us, but other teams were compromised as well. We will have a busy FP3 session ahead of us.”
Sergio Perez: “It was one of those days when the wet weather really limited our programme. I didn’t drive this morning so the wet session this afternoon was not ideal. I feel that I’m a little bit on the back foot and it’s going to be important to maximise what we can get out of final practice tomorrow. Nico has shown that the car is competitive here and hopefully I can find some more performance in the morning to be ready for qualifying.”
Nico Hulkenberg: “Definitely a solid day. The car feels okay, but we still have some homework to do tonight to improve the balance. It was quite a strange day with the changing weather, especially this afternoon when the big storm arrived, and the knock-on effect means we don’t have very much long-run data – but it’s the same for everybody. We were able to do some laps on the intermediate tyres, which is important because we don’t know what the weather will do tomorrow and whether the rain will return. Overall, I think we are in good shape heading into the weekend.”
Alfonso Celis: “It was a straightforward session for me and I’m pleased we had a smooth day. I only ran on the soft tyres, so there was definitely extra performance to be found on the supersoft or ultrasoft, but the team’s programme was to focus on understanding the soft. We also did a few test items and procedural checks, and everything went to plan.”
Pascal Wehrlein: “Well, we were expecting [the rain]; the forecast was pretty accurate. Everything was okay for me. Of course, we wanted to drive more and work through more of the test programme, but at the end of the day it’s the same for everyone. We didn’t manage to complete a run on the ultrasoft tyre but at this stage I’m happy with the car, particularly at the end of the day. I’ve known this track for some time and I like it. It’s high speed with fast corners and good opportunities to overtake, so in general it’s nice to drive.
Rio Haryanto: “This morning we tried a few different set-up changes and everything was going well but then unfortunately I made a mistake, spun off and that destroyed the tyres. On the positive side we knew we had a reasonable balance and we were confident in the direction for FP2. This afternoon the weather changed and conditions were very tricky, but 20 minutes before the end we had a reasonably dry track to play with and we could start to make good progress again. For the last run I took on the ultrasoft tyres but the yellow flags came out for the spin by Vettel. Although I wasn’t able to improve the lap time because of that, I think we’re in a good place for tomorrow. My first impressions are that the track is much smoother and generally better than in my previous years of racing here in another formula. I think there is more grip all round, so yes, I’m enjoying it.”
Daniel Ricciardo: “I think we’ve had a pretty good day and didn’t fight the car too much today. This morning we got up to speed pretty quickly, which was important. Then this afternoon was crazy. The level of rain was really high during the session, but it was actually good to experience two different conditions. The rain was so local and came in really hard at Turn 8 and 9 so that part of the track was especially tricky. If in the race you get that part of the track first before the others then you could be quite unlucky. It’s been a track where we struggled a bit in the past, but I felt pretty comfortable from lap one so I think we are more or less there and won’t be here until midnight tonight trying to find a set up. We are pretty close to where we need to be so that’s a good start. If it rains tomorrow then anything is possible. It’ll be very interesting.”
Max Verstappen: “The first session today was a bit shorter than I would have liked, so we lost a bit of time there and also at the beginning of the second session. The car wasn’t quite ready due to the damage we suffered in the first session so that put us on the back foot a bit. We would have liked to run more but I’m pretty happy heading into Saturday with the laps I did, it wasn’t too bad. I actually didn’t expect to be that close so I’m quite happy. The kerbs are pretty high and can cause damage as we saw, but it’s up to us to stay off them and respect the track limits. I didn’t know they would be so hard on the car, perhaps one longer kerb instead of lots of smaller ones would be better. Looking ahead at the weather for the rest of the weekend I hope it rains because our car is really good in the wet, so let’s see what happens in qualifying.”
Read the full story at GRAND PRIX 247
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