07/07/2023
NEWS STORY
Yuki Tsunoda: "With such a large number of new parts that we have introduced, it takes time to understand them.
"We have definitely seen some gains in a few places, and we'll use tonight to analyse the data we collected today. Tomorrow is a new day, and we'll use FP3 to maximise our package in time for qualifying."
Nyck de Vries: "The car performance was decent in FP1, but FP2 was more difficult. With all the updates we brought this weekend, it takes time to understand their behaviour. We'll go through all our data tonight to learn as much as possible, to get ready for qualifying tomorrow afternoon."
Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer): "We brought a new aero package to this event consisting of floor, bodywork, rear wing and rear brake duct, so the focus of the day was to understand the performance and characteristics associated with it. To help us gather the best data possible, we carried out various setup tests across the two cars using the medium and soft tyre compounds in FP1. There was time for a long run at the end of the first session and as the degradation was higher than expected, we took this learning into the FP2 long runs. Analysis showed that the update is actually working well.
"We made further changes to the car in FP2, but it's fair to say we didn't hit the sweet spot with either car in terms of balance on the soft tyre short runs, lacking front end, which is a lap time killer here. High track temperatures exacerbated the front tyre overheating which resulted in a lack of front grip, so we think there is a step of lap time to come tomorrow with better balance. The long runs in FP2 were better managed, but we still had high degradation, so we need to review the strategy for the race. In summary, the aero update shows gains in the data and the focus of the overnight work will be to see what is required with setup and driving, to utilise this extra performance and turn that into lap time."
Check out our Friday gallery from Silverstone here.