Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering
We managed to get through all of our planned work today which is the main thing. We tried various different directions on set-ups and tyre management, with some looking good and some not, and we believe we have enough information that can be pulled together to make positive steps forward tomorrow.
Felipe Massa
It was a very difficult day today as we were struggling a lot to balance the car and we need to resolve this tonight otherwise it will be a tough weekend for us. We saw some improvement between FP1 and FP2, but we need to find more gains in FP3 if we are to have a qualifying that would satisfy us. We knew that this track wouldn’t suit our car as much as recent power circuits, but we have done lots of tests that will help us tomorrow.
Valtteri Bottas
Today wasn’t an easy day for us as we struggled with the balance of the car from the very beginning, especially with the rear. The primary focus tonight will be squeezing more lap time from the option tyre as we only gained half a second over the prime, whilst other teams gained as much as two seconds. I don’t think the position we have finished today is truly reflective, but the car is certainly not as easy to drive here as it has been recently so we need to work hard to find more lap time.