24/08/2018
NEWS STORY
Pierre Gasly: "Overall, I would say it was a clean day for us. We knew we would struggle at this track because the characteristics of this circuit don't really work in our favour, so we tried to make the best out of our package. The car feels pretty good at the moment, but some of our main competitors were quite fast today so we need to work and improve to have a stronger day tomorrow. Hopefully we might see some rain, which could definitely make it more exciting!"
Brendon Hartley: "It was nice to take my first laps around Spa in a Formula 1 car after the summer break. It definitely woke me up going through Eau Rouge flat out the first and second lap! The day went pretty smooth without any technical issues with the car. There's plenty of data to look into, but unfortunately it seems both cars were a bit off the pace. We definitely have some work to do overnight, but it's once again quite tight from where we are to the top 10."
Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer): "It's great to be back on track after the two-week summer shutdown, and what better place to start the second half of the season than in Spa! It's a fantastic track that offers unpredictable conditions and can lead to very exciting races with many opportunities. Although there was a reasonable chance of rain during the day, in the end it never came so we had two clean sessions. After the successful test in Hungary, we came here with a number of setup ideas to try on a different track, so the majority of FP1 was spent trialling these, splitting the test across the two cars. Brendon focused on aero related tests while Pierre focused on mechanical side. These gave us the results we were expecting and we came out of the session looking reasonably competitive, especially given the circuit nature not necessarily suiting our car. Across the session we analysed all of the data and put the best setup options on the two cars. The FP2 session was a standard one, with the normal short runs followed by long runs. The Mediums are quite difficult to warm up in the cooler conditions, but the drivers were generally happy with the balance on the Supersoft. We didn't really find the lap time we expected, and our competitiveness dropped a little in FP2, which is something we will need to understand and work on tonight."
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "It was meant to rain today, but it did not, so we were able to have a trouble-free day, completing our planned PU programme. We focused on optimising energy management. For tomorrow, there is a forecast for rain again, so we just have to be prepared for any situation over the next two days."
Check out our Friday gallery from Spa, here.