23/03/2018
NEWS STORY
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: Today went well from the perspective that we achieved all the things we set out to do. There was a minor problem with the radio which lost Sergey some time this morning, and then this afternoon Lance's car got too close to the power unit limits doing practice starts, so we stopped on track after the chequered flag to preserve the engine. But, other than that, it was a trouble-free day. We chose to run an extra set of tyres in FP2 because we anticipate wet weather for FP3 tomorrow and we won't be able to make use of these tyres. We worked on balance, which is not too bad at the moment and the drivers were learning the track, particularly in Sergey's case, and learning how to get the best from the tyres, which are working properly here, unlike during pre-season testing where the conditions were so cold. There's clearly a very competitive midfield, so there's a lot of work to do overnight to ensure we can perform at our very best in qualifying tomorrow.
Lance Stroll: I think it was a positive day, looking at the laptimes and everything. I think we can improve quite a bit, because we got the red flag and I went back out and did my time on a one lap tyre, so there is definitely a few tenths in that. If you ask me I think we are in a decent position. We don't know where the other cars are on fuel and everything, and we don't know what engine mode people are running, so that is a question mark. It seems like the car is a bit better here than in testing. At the end of the session the engine went into a safety mode. At the practice start seeing the red lights with the halo is fine.
Sergey Sirotkin: Both sessions were quite good today. I went through different stuff, going through normal things to understand the car and the track. It's not easy, but it's as expected. Overall, everything feels very different to Barcelona. It's still a bit early to say, but I think we look OK. You get more confidence with every lap and every corner, especially when you try different things. There are still many new things for me to learn procedurally. Q3 is obviously the target, but the midfield is very close. It's not going to be easy but if we do a perfect job we could be there. We're improving, but altogether the picture compared to Barcelona looks very different.
Check out our Friday gallery from Melbourne, here.