18/07/2014
NEWS STORY
The first practice day for the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim was dominated by the sunny weather and the resulting high ambient and track temperatures. In the morning Adrian Sutil, as well as test and reserve driver Giedo van der Garde, concentrated on set-up work. In the second free practice Esteban Gutierrez took over the wheel of the C33. The main focus in the afternoon was on the tyre comparison with low and high fuel loads. While the performance on a single quick lap is quite good, there is still room for improvement on the long runs.
Esteban Gutierrez: "In the afternoon I was trying to catch up on the programme as I missed FP1. I mainly focused on getting a feeling for the car. We are experimenting and trying different things and the two cars have different set-ups. During my last stint I improved quite a lot. Now, we are going to analyse the data and decide in which direction we should go tomorrow."
Adrian Sutil: "It was a difficult day. Because of the high temperatures it was not easy to find a good set-up. However, this was the same situation for everyone. Due to the extremely high track temperatures, it was tough to manage the tyres. Besides that, I also had a lot of understeer. I think it is positive that we are close to the top ten. The objective for tomorrow is to keep up today's performance."
Giedo van der Garde: "It was a good session. I was able to run through our programme this morning. I was doing some set-up work. We tried a few things, some of them were positive and some did not work. Now we are going to analyse the data. I think the team was happy with my feedback and the direction we are going in. All in all, I was not focusing on fast laps, rather on consistent running, working on tyre management and doing set-up work."
Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Head of Track Engineering: "The day went according to plan, and we were able to complete our planned programme with Adrian, Esteban and Giedo. The morning was quite good in terms of making progress with the car's set-up and the preparation for the weekend. In the afternoon Esteban needed a little bit of time to find the rhythm after sitting out FP1. Due to the high temperatures, it was very difficult to manage the tyres correctly. With the low fuel performance we can be pretty satisfied. On the long runs we are not yet where we want to be, so we will look into that this evening. However, overall it was a good start to the weekend."
Check out our Friday gallery, here.