21/10/2016
NEWS STORY
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: Today was a fairly standard Friday for us and the focus has been on completing our work plan as usual and getting the data we need. We had new aerodynamic components on the car this morning that we were testing, a new front wing and brake duct, and these looked reasonably positive with good driver feedback. Valtteri tested the halo this morning as well. It was a purely aesthetic device to gauge driver reaction and visibility. In the afternoon we focused on our normal tyre and set-up work. On the long and short runs we look to be roughly where we expect to be relative to the teams we are battling with, so I'm optimistic we can have a decent weekend. With the midfield looking as tight as it is, qualifying well will be very important, so we need to make no mistakes.
Valtteri Bottas: Today's practice was pretty straight forward with no problems for me. We covered all three compounds we have available here this week and did a double install with the halo device. The starting balance of the car was perfectly good, as well as the driveability, but there's still plenty of work to do in both the short and long runs. We can make improvements in all areas I think ahead of tomorrow.
Felipe Massa: We were not looking as competitive in FP2 on the low fuel as we would have liked, so we need to go away and understand what needs improving. There isn't one particular area that we need to focus on, it's a mix of things that we need to get coming together. It will be a big fight with Force India tomorrow and we need to make improvements overnight in order to get the edge on them.
Check out our Friday gallery from Austin, here.