Renault Sport Formula One Team opened the Formula 1 Gran Premio de México with Kevin Magnussen leading the team’s charge by setting the fourteenth-fastest time of the day at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Jolyon Palmer ended the day three-tenths adrift of his team-mate with the sixteenth fastest time.
Kevin Magnussen
“We made some good progress with the car today. It was my first time driving this circuit and I’m happy we were able to get the car dialled-in where we wanted as it felt much better in the second session. It’s the altitude that takes your breath away here rather than the track layout, which is pretty straight-forward. I certainly want some more grip tomorrow.”
Jolyon Palmer
“That was a reasonable Friday for us however we still need to work on the balance of the car as it isn’t where I want it. The track is certainly slippery. We saw the grip improve over the sessions today and we’d certainly expect it to improve further tomorrow and on Sunday. I would have liked to have felt a little happier at the end of the day today, so we’ve got some work to do.”
Nick Chester, Technical Director
“From a technical perspective it was a solid day for us: we completed our programme, we ran with the HALO for the first time, we saw no problems with the cars and both drivers we reasonably happy. On Kevin’s side of the garage the balance improved for FP2 and he was able to post some reasonable laps in that session. Jolyon still isn’t 100% happy with the balance on his car so there’s a little work to be done there. Now our focus is working out how to get the maximum from the tyres including extending the super soft compound’s performance life. We saw a lot of track surface improvement over the course of the day and we expect that to continue tomorrow and beyond.”