09/10/2020
NEWS STORY
Foggy, moist conditions at the Nurburgring effectively cancelled today's free practice sessions ahead of the Eifel Grand Prix. With clearer conditions forecast for tomorrow, Renault DP World F1 Team will condense its plans into just one practice before the afternoon's qualifying.
Daniel Ricciardo: "I think Germany wanted to steal Imola's limelight and become the first ever two-day race weekend. It's a shame we didn't get to drive today, but I'm not hugely impacted by it. I've stayed warm for a day, so that's good. Tomorrow does look the driest of the three days so hopefully we should get some running in ahead of qualifying. The fans who came today might not have seen a lot, but if it's drier tomorrow there could be a lot of excitement."
Esteban Ocon: "It's been a long day with the conditions and unfortunately we could not do any running. I feel sorry for the fans who are here. I was watching them on TV and it's very cold outside. I hope they stay and come along tomorrow when the weather should improve and, hopefully, we can show them what the cars are capable of here. I think tomorrow will be a bit more demanding with limited track time and tyres but that's the same for everyone. It'll be about who adapts the quickest. Even though we didn't run today there are key decisions on strategy and things we still have to think about for the race weekend."
Ciaron Pilbeam, Chief Race Engineer: "We'd rather have been out there running today, but sometimes the conditions just don't allow for it. We now need to adapt our plans accordingly and obviously this places a lot more emphasis on the third practice session than normal. We get to carry over an extra set of dry tyres so we will have three sets instead of the normal two and can put in more mileage. This is however assuming the track is dry, which is not at all certain. The forecast is better and clearer, but it will be cold and that means that the track will be slow to dry. We have to hope conditions improve sufficiently so the track will be open and we can do at least some running as we try to learn as much as we can."
Check out our Friday gallery from the Nurburgring, here.