20/05/2022
NEWS STORY
Pierre Gasly: "It feels good to be back in Barcelona. Today hasn't been our best Friday though, it's been extremely difficult. We can't seem to get the car where we want it, the conditions aren't helping and it's hard to cope with, but that's the same for everyone. It's not going to be an easy race for anyone, the car has never liked these super-hot temperatures, so we'll need to analyse everything tonight and work out what's best for us to get the most from it. There's a lot of things we need to improve tonight and then after FP3 tomorrow we can look to see what's achievable for us in Qualifying. We're not too far from the top 10 so we just need to go away, focus on ourselves and hopefully we'll be in Q3 tomorrow."
Yuki Tsunoda: "I'm not that happy with the car at the moment. We've got a lot of work to do for tomorrow if we're aiming for Q3 in Qualifying, but I think it's possible, we've still got another practice session to make changes to the car and extract the most from this package. Currently, the weekend has been going smoothly, so I hope this can continue and we can look for points on Sunday."
Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer): "Although Barcelona is a track both the team and drivers know well, the conditions were significantly different to those in winter testing, with track temperatures close to 50°C. This has had a significant impact on tyre performance, both grip and balance, with the handling characteristics being exaggerated. We had an extensive test plan in FP1 across the cars on the aero and mechanical side, which allowed us to confirm some pre-event theories and we then took this learning into FP2. The focus of FP2 was on the short-run performance on the Softs and then the long-run performance, to evaluate the best tyres for the race. The soft tyres have the most grip, but also have higher degradation compared to the Mediums and Hards, so we need to review the best choice for Sunday, which is expected to be the hottest day of the weekend. Although we made changes to the car for FP2, neither driver was totally happy with the balance, so we have a lot of work to do tonight to analyse the data and set the car up in the best possible way for tomorrow."