02/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Nyck de Vries: "It's been a decent day for us, especially FP1. I believe we were slightly out of position, but we hit the ground running fairly well. During FP2, we didn't quite get everything together. We tried different things and I think they will give us a better idea for tomorrow to be able to put it together when it counts. Tonight we will check how much the new upgrades are working, as it's the first day we can have a proper read on it. There's more emphasis on the front axle with the new changes, when previously it was on both. I'm not sure whether the new layout will produce better racing on Sunday because we noticed that it was difficult to follow, but I don't think we can jump to any conclusions too quickly."
Yuki Tsunoda: "Overall, today went ok. We have to make some changes ahead of tomorrow's qualifying to achieve the highest possible position because today, we ended up in the bottom part of the field. The track is definitely faster in the last two corners and harder on the tyres too. Tomorrow is a new day though, which gives us some time to work on our limitations. As usual, I will work together with the engineers tonight to improve the car as much as possible to try to make it through to Q2, and maybe even Q3 tomorrow."
Claudio Balestri (Chief Engineer - Vehicle Performance): "It was a fairly busy Friday on track. We had a long list of tests to be completed in FP1, including some important runs with aero rakes, while also testing the new Pirelli tyre. We had a positive session where we gathered interesting data on the new Barcelona layout, now characterised by several high-speed corners which are very demanding on the front axle.
In FP2, we focused on optimising our setup to extract the maximum from our package, testing different levels of fuel loads and different compounds. We didn't find a competitive lap time on the soft tyre on the first lap, so we need to look into this, while on the long run, we tried to get a better understanding of tyre management for the race on Sunday. We have a busy night ahead of us to try to find how to improve our lap times and maximise our package tomorrow."