Verstappen Tops Friday Practice At The Red Bull Ring #F1
Red Bull RingMax topped both sessions of Friday practice at the Styrian Grand Prix, with both Honda-powered teams enjoying a strong start, although Pierre missed out on the second session for Scuderia AlphaTauri.
At the beginning of a double-header at the Red Bull Ring, FP1 saw a very impressive start all-round, with Max Pierre, Sergio and Yuki at the top of the time sheet in that order in the early part of the session!. With Sergio suffering a spin at Turn 4 on his soft-tyre lap, he finished the session outside the top ten but Max set the pace ahead of Pierre by a quarter of a second, and Yuki in fifth place.
After the first session, we noticed something on the data of Pierre’s PU that required further investigation, and the time required to investigate it fully meant the Frenchman unfortunately missed out on FP2.
The second practice session ran a little more smoothly for Max, who again set the pace and this time enjoyed an advantage of more 0.3s over the rest of the field, while Sergio was ninth overall after yellow flags disrupted some of the low fuel runs. Light rain in the first part of FP2 made for tricky conditions but Yuki delivered another solid performance and completed 39 laps to gather plenty of data as he finished 15th.
We will now analyse all of the information we have gained throughout Friday’s running and look to make further gains ahead of qualifying on Saturday afternoon.
Overall, both our teams had a satisfactory first day of practice for the Styrian Grand Prix, although we did have an issue with Pierre’s car. Looking at his data from FP1, we spotted an anomaly and so we opted to carry out a thorough check, which meant he was unable to run in FP2. He was second fastest in the morning, so it’s disappointing that we were unable to carry out the fine tuning on his settings in the afternoon. Together with the team, we will try and make up for the time lost tomorrow in FP3, preparing for qualifying and the race. There was a bit of rain before FP2 and the forecast for the next two days is also unsettled. We will therefore simulate a variety of situations to be ready for whatever conditions we encounter.
Overall it’s been quite a good day for us and although there are a few things to look into, which is very normal for a Friday, I am quite happy with where the car is at the moment. In the second practice Lewis had a faster lap time that was deleted so it looks a bit different to what is shown at the moment on the timesheets but we expect to see both teams at the top. The weather forecast looks like it is changing all the time, so let’s see what it is actually like tomorrow, but I think it will be a very tight battle again.
Track conditions were tricky at the start of FP2 but they improved throughout the session. From our side we need to do a bit of fine tuning as there’s definitely some more potential in the car and finding a few tenths here makes a huge difference. I’m still learning the best set-up adjustments for the car and as usual, taking my time with the engineers to get that right. I think we do have good pace and the long runs seem to be promising. So, if we’re able to find a couple of tenths overnight then we should be in the fight tomorrow and hopefully we can put a good lap together in Q3.
This morning was great, the pace and performance of the car was strong and everything went well, so it was a really positive session for the start of the weekend. Unfortunately, the team spotted an issue on the PU and didn’t want to take any risks, so have spent the afternoon checking this. There were some things we wanted to try during FP2 so it’s a shame to have not been able to do that but at the end of the day, there’s nothing we can do about it and we just need to look forward to tomorrow now. Yuki didn’t feel as comfortable in the car this afternoon as he was in FP1, so we need to go away and analyse all the data we have ahead of tomorrow, then we can piece everything together for Qualifying.
I’m fairly happy with today. We saw in FP1 that the short run pace of the car is definitely there, and I was able to put in some good lap times during the session. However, on the longer runs in FP2 I struggled quite a bit with the balance of the car, so I need to work on that tonight. I know there’s a chance of rain tomorrow, but I would prefer dry conditions if I’m honest. I don’t have a lot of experience in the wet in Formula 1 so that would make things trickier for me. If it’s dry, I just need to put everything together step-by-step in Qualifying and increase my confidence as I go through the session.
