07/08/2020
NEWS STORY
As race week Fridays go, this was a busy one. There were plenty of thrills and spills up and down the grid, surprising moves, decisive breakthroughs... and that's before FP1 had even started.
Once cars hit the road again, it was business as usual for the team, with the bulk of the sessions devoted to finding the best balance for the rest of the weekend or, rather, refining the findings of last weekend's action into set-ups. Our three drivers - Robert taking over Antonio's car for FP1 - produced plenty of data for the engineers to pore over tonight. The new compounds for this weekend - one step softer compared to last time out - will be giving a new set of challenges to the boffins picking the best strategies for the weekend and add an element of change to spice up this repeat performance around Silverstone.
A second race in the same venue it may be, but we will be hoping to find the perfect combination to produce a good outcome - starting in qualifying tomorrow...
Kimi Raikkonen: "The car felt a little bit better than last weekend but there's still plenty of speed to be found. It was a fairly straightforward Friday, we are working to get some more performance for tomorrow but we will only find where we really stand in qualifying. As always here, we will need to see what conditions we have tomorrow: hopefully we will make a little step forward and improve."
Antonio Giovinazzi: "It's always a bit of a challenge to come in after sitting a session out, but we have plenty of data from last week to help us out. We got good info from FP2, we managed to do at least one run during our qualifying simulation and a high-fuel run even though we had to stop the session with a minute to go due to a small technical issue. As always on Friday, we will need to go through all the data we collected and find the best way forward to be in a better shape come qualifying."
Robert Kubica: "Silverstone is one of the greatest tracks to drive an F1 car, especially in the fast corners. It was a bit of a shock coming in after racing in DTM last week, but it didn't take me long to settle in. The car feels pretty good, something I noticed since the tests in Barcelona, but there is still work to do to find more speed. We are working, trying hard to bring more performance but so is everyone: we will need to do our best to gain some ground on everyone else."
Check out our Friday gallery from Silverstone, here.