27/11/2020
NEWS STORY
A first session in the light of day, the second one under the lights of the night. Friday practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix follows its usual pattern, with the later session held in conditions much more representative of what drivers and teams will experience in tomorrow's qualifying.
The weekend's action started with Robert Kubica in the car, deputising for Kimi Raikkonen in his fourth FP1 appearance in the season. The Pole completed his programme, gathering important data for the team, before Kimi returned to the car, alongside Antonio Giovinazzi, for the remainder of the day.
A red flag halfway through FP2 took away a chunk of time from the session, but the team nonetheless ends the day with plenty of information to improve the car ahead of qualifying. The devil, as always, will be in the detail and small margins are expected to make the difference in the first segments of qualifying. As many times before, it's a matter of wait and see...
Kimi Raikkonen: "Of course I only had one session today, but we still had the time to do a good job. The car felt ok in FP2, which is effectively the most representative session ahead of qualifying, but as always there will be a lot to improve overnight. Let's see what we can do tomorrow, it will be close."
Antonio Giovinazzi: "It's been a straightforward Friday, like you always want, and we were able to do everything we had planned. Of course there is always a margin for improvement, but that's what we are going to do tonight when we look at the data and try to make the right set-up changes for tomorrow. The objective is to make it to Q2: it's going to be a close fight and we'll need to put the perfect lap together to be ahead of our closest rivals."
Robert Kubica: "It's been quite a while since the last time I was in the car, as in the meantime I have been driving in DTM, so it was crucial to get the feeling for the car and the confidence straight away. It went well, I got back in the way of driving these cars quickly and I felt quite at ease. It was a good session overall, we completed the full programme so we are happy with how the day went. It's nice to be back in the car and work with the team: I had some clear indications for the engineers and there was a lot of information I could give the team. Hopefully we can make the most of the weekend like we did in some of the last few races and take the opportunities we can get."
Check out our Friday gallery from Bahrain, here.