It's going to be intense with so many cars on track, too, so it's going to be really important to get clean laps in and prioritise the gaps."Īndrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director On such a short track, in qualifying that could make all the difference. The new section of track is really technical and bumpy, so it's quite challenging and really easy to lose a tenth.
There's quite a bit of work to do on my side to get everything together for qualifying. Red Bull look really competitive on those long runs, particularly on the Medium tyre, and George was putting in good laps as well. So, not the best day, but the long runs were pretty consistent.
FP2 felt ok, but obviously I didn't really get any laps in on the Soft tyre, as my only half decent lap was deleted because of track limits. I went over the kerbs in Turn 8 in my first run in FP1 and broke quite a large chunk off the floor, so the rest of the session was a bit of a waste afterwards. But it's been an encouraging first day and I'm excited to be back in W11 tomorrow." There's still a lot of work to do to get comfortable in the car and with the set-up. It's going to be close, so we'll get our heads down tonight. The Red Bulls were quick on the long runs and Valtteri was quickest in FP2 but had his lap time deleted. I struggled on the high fuel runs in FP2 and ultimately that's going to be key on Sunday. I think my lap times are a bit deceiving at the moment and not the true representation of the pace. It's been good to be working with the team today and I'm learning a lot every single lap I'm in the car. It's going to be very tight in qualifying and we can probably expect a dramatic race. The new track layout is very different to the usual layout here and it's not an easy track to say the least. "It was a good first day in the W11 but there's definitely work to be done.
As for Bottas, his woes continued when his fastest lap was deleted for exceeding track limits, before a very scrappy longer run completed his evening’s work. Roll on FP2 and it was Russell to the fore again as he nailed his lap when it mattered, despite being somewhat uncomfortable in a car definitely not designed for someone of his height. That was helped somewhat by damage suffered after Bottas ran over the abrasive kerbs – but Russell certainly beat the Red Bulls on merit. Russell made a pretty perfect start to his Mercedes vacation, coming home in FP1 at the head of the pack.
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