31/07/2020
NEWS STORY
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: Although each of today's sessions were interrupted by red flags, we still worked through most of our plan. Each driver looked at different set-up trades as we sought to balance the performance on the straights and the high-speed corners. The hot blustery conditions made this a little difficult, but between the cars we gained enough experience to get the best compromise for tomorrow.
The conditions are expected to be a little different on Saturday and if the wind changes direction then we may need to make some further compromises. However, that is normal for Silverstone and the other teams will face the same dilemmas.
Compared to Hungary we thought that we might struggle a little more here, but we made decent progress today and we are a bit closer to our competitors than we feared. The car is working reasonably well, and we will see how things pan out when it really matters tomorrow afternoon, but we are hoping to be able to challenge for Q2.
George Russell: It was difficult out there today, the pace was ok, probably where we expected it to be. As a team this circuit does not suit our car as much as Hungary. The Alfa Romeos seem pretty fast so I think we will be in competition with Haas this weekend. We are trying to find the right compromise between downforce and drag. We have got a lot of straights here but a lot of high-speed corners so you need to try and run as little as you can without compromising Copse, Maggotts and Becketts.
Silverstone is my home race, last year was such a buzz with all the fans and sadly we don't have that this year. However, the excitement levels are more because of the pace of the car. We are still not where we want to be but at least we have a small fighting chance.
Nicholas Latifi: Overall from my experience driving the track I enjoyed it quite a lot. It is my favourite on the calendar, so I was looking forward to driving these cars around here. It is good fun with lots of high speed. In general, in P1, the first runs were not so bad and then we had an issue which took away a bit of the programme. We tried some things going into P2 which didn't really work out in terms of the feeling of the car. I was not at the pace I wanted to be. I was struggling with consistency, as well as some consistency in my own driving that carried over into the high fuel runs which I wasn't happy with. I think we have an idea of why it was so difficult, but we definitely have a lot to analyse tonight.
Check out our Friday gallery from Silverstone, here.