17/06/2016
NEWS STORY
Rio Haryanto: "Today was a really positive day for us. If I compare FP1 and FP2, we seemed to be more competitive in FP2, so we're obviously heading in a good direction. We did some long runs to understand the tyre degradation better. The Supersoft tyre was trickier but the Softs felt quite good. I really enjoyed getting to grips with the circuit; it's a fun track and I think we're in good shape for tomorrow and for the race."
Pascal Wehrlein: "I'm very happy with the track; it's really nice - and interesting - and I'm enjoying driving here. FP1 was good because I did my lap on the Medium tyres, but then we made some changes between the two sessions and things didn't work out so well. We need to go over the data and explore this a little more, so we can be back on it for FP3 tomorrow."
Dave Ryan, Racing Director: "Some really positive signs from our opening day on track here in Baku. Today's running certainly lived up to expectation, with a few thrills and spills up and down the field. Rio and Pascal handled themselves very well at what is clearly a challenging track to master, so they should be pretty pleased with their first day's work. It's early days yet but we seem to be right in the mix with both Renault and Sauber, which is a good sign at this stage of the weekend but obviously it's qualifying tomorrow that counts, so there's a lot of work for the engineers and mechanics to get through before the 0300hrs curfew kicks in tomorrow morning. It has to be said this is a spectacular circuit and I think we can look forward to an exciting couple of days ahead on track, particularly as we adapt to slightly later session times when the track conditions will evolve significantly."
Check out our Friday gallery, here.