12/07/2019
NEWS STORY
Alexander Albon: "I think it was a good day for us, we found some balance that we missed in the past two weekends and we now have the car in a better window. We looked quite consistent in both the long and short runs which put us in the mix. There are still definitely things to improve on, so we'll work on that with the aim of getting into Q3 tomorrow."
Daniil Kvyat: "At the beginning of the session the tarmac felt different, it was quite dirty to start with but got cleaner lap after lap. We've done quite a few laps today, so we understand the car better now and we will try to do our best to make a further step forward. The midfield is tight as always, so we will do our best to squeeze everything out of the car tomorrow in Qualifying."
Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer): "We came to Silverstone on the back of two difficult events for the team in France and Austria, so we put an awful lot of effort in the last 10 days in both Faenza and Bicester to find the main reasons for the lack of performance. We believe we have identified the reasons and have a much better understanding of what our limitations were in the past two races. We had an intense simulator programme to come here well prepared with items to address that, so our main focus in FP1 was understanding our analysis and putting test items into practice on the track to see if we could improve the balance and bring our competitiveness back to where it was a few races ago. The track is extremely new after having been resurfaced and that presented its own challenges today. We could see many drivers were struggling with the low grip at the start of the session, which was also not helped by the fact that the wind, which is quite typical in Silverstone, was very strong. It was gusty and changing directions, making the car handling a little bit inconsistent, but we got enough good running in FP1 to understand that our effort brought some good results. We did some further steps heading into FP2, then spent the session trying to fine-tune the balance over the short runs. Our long runs look reasonable, so we will look through all of the data and decide what to do going forward for the rest of the weekend. We seem to be back in terms of competitiveness at the tail end of the top 10, so close to the front of the midfield. It looks like the work is paying off but we'll confirm that in Qualifying tomorrow and the race on Sunday."
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "Although, like everyone, we had to deal with a new track surface and blustery winds, we had a smooth and trouble free day. It was particularly encouraging to see that Toro Rosso seems more competitive in the mid-field than at the past couple of races. The announcement earlier this week that Silverstone will host this Grand Prix for a further five years is good news for Honda, as we have great memories of some fantastic results here."
Check out our Friday gallery from Silverstone, here.