20/07/2018
NEWS STORY
Pierre Gasly: "Overall, it was a difficult day for us in terms of pace. There isn't much to say other than we need to work really hard to find more grip, which is what we are struggling with at the moment. The only thing we can do is to try and work as efficiently as possible to improve the car's performance for tomorrow."
Brendon Hartley: "It was really enjoyable to drive Hockenheim for the first time in a Formula 1 car. I felt pretty strong in both sessions, particularly at the end of FP2 during the high fuel long run. I think I was one of the stronger cars in the midfield which is a real positive. Again, it's extremely tight on short run pace in the midfield, I think it's just two or three tenths to get to the top 10. I didn't get everything together on my best lap, but if we do our homework tonight I think we can aim to move up a few places tomorrow."
Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer): "It's great to be back at the German GP and Hockenheim after a one-year break. It's typically very hot here and tough on tyres, and this year it has been no exception.
"We arrived at this track with a few new parts on the car; we have some performance updates we evaluated on Pierre's car to further help the performance from both the chassis and the PU side. These were evaluated throughout both sessions, and their performance is as we expected. The track started dirty in FP1 and temperatures were already high, the general grip level was low and neither driver was happy with the balance of the car. For this reason, we spent the majority of the session to try and get a better balance to make the drivers feel more comfortable in the car. Towards the end of the session, Brendon carried out some aero correlation runs and Pierre did a longer run on the Soft tyre, given that we weren't planning to run it again on Friday. We were one of the few teams who ran two soft tyres in FP1, so the time sheets weren't representative of where the real pace of the car was.
"Moving into FP2, we made quite a number of changes to both cars on the mechanical and aero side to improve both the grip and balance. The track temperature increased and that, combined with the lower working range of the Ultrasoft, meant the overheating was even trickier in FP2. However, the changes we made certainly helped and both drivers set reasonably representative lap times. As you will see from the times, it's extremely tight in the midfield, so just a few tenths would promote us within the top 10. We will work extremely hard tonight to ensure we extract every last piece of performance from the cars."
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "It's good to be racing in Germany again, after a one-year break. Track conditions this morning were affected by very high temperatures. On the PU side, we had a trouble free day, gathering data from both short and long runs, which we need to prepare for qualifying and the race. In terms of our settings, we will now take into account the possibility of rain tomorrow, although it is expected to be dry again on race day."
Check out our Friday gallery from Hockenheim, here.