26/04/2019
NEWS STORY
Sergio Perez: "It has been a difficult day after losing valuable track time in FP1. I had a big lockup in FP2 with my tyres which also hurt me a bit, but other than that I am pleased with the progress we made through the session. Hopefully tonight we can find a couple of tenths that will put us in the fight tomorrow. We put a good amount of laps on the board, which is important around this circuit: you need as much mileage as possible to build your confidence as the weekend progresses. I was not as confident straight away as in other years around here, but I think we can improve a lot tomorrow. The key for qualifying will be to keep building up your feeling with the car and to improve our balance. We've got a bit of that confidence on the long runs already but we need that on a single lap too. Other cars are very competitive around here, but we will try our best."
Lance Stroll: "It's been a tough start to the weekend, we lost track time this morning but it was the same for everybody. FP2 had started better: I felt a good rhythm with the car in the laps I did this afternoon, but I had a snap on entry coming into turn two, the rear came out on me and that was that, I ended up in the wall. It's frustrating, but it is what it is. The team did their best to get the car back out on track for the end of the session, but we just missed out by the smallest of margins. We will look at the data we have overnight and focus on getting as many laps as we can tomorrow and take it from there."
Otmar Szafnauer: "It wasn't the most straightforward Friday, with limited running compared to what we had originally planned. Obviously, everyone missed out on most of FP1 after the session was red flagged and abandoned. In FP2, Lance was caught out in turn two, as were many others; he tried to abort the lap but unfortunately clipped the barriers. We worked hard to get the car back out on track before the end of the session, but missed out by a matter of seconds. Sergio struggled with low grip at first, mostly due to the very slippery track we always see here early in the weekend. However, we steadily improved the car throughout the session and by the time we got to the long runs, at the end of the programme, he had a bit more confidence. We have a good understanding of the available tyre compounds, but there's still plenty of work to do to make up the lost time and be in shape ahead of tomorrow's qualifying."
Check out our Friday gallery from Baku, here.