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07/10/2023
NEWS STORY
Yuki Tsunoda: "Today wasn't the easiest day, but that seems to be the case on Sprint Saturdays. I apologise to the team for the track limit violation and my radio communication in SQ1.
"We didn't maximise the performance during the Sprint Shootout, so I'm pretty frustrated. As for the Sprint race, the first lap was difficult, especially with the wind, but we focused on collecting data, taking care of the car, and bringing it home. We learned a lot of things for tomorrow, and we're starting close to the points, so we'll refocus and try to extract the most out of the car. Track limits seem difficult, and tyre management will be tricky, but we have a couple of things in our back pocket, so hopefully, we can maximise on that and score points tomorrow."
Liam Lawson: "Today, the speed in SQ1 was there, but unfortunately, I made a mistake during my last lap, took too much kerb, and my lap time got deleted. My apologies to the team, because they did a really good job and worked hard overnight to make a big step forward from yesterday. On lap 1 of the Sprint race, the biggest thing was the sand offline. I had a bad start on the dirty side of the track, but then I went into Turn 1 on the racing line, had a strong corner, and made up a few places. In Turn 2, I went offline and lost the rear very quickly. I'm massively sorry to the team, because with everything that happened in the race, we maybe could've scored some points today, but my mistake cost us. The car seems okay, and going into tomorrow, I'll learn from what happened today. The tyre degradation was quite high so it will be a tough, long race, but I'll look at the data tonight and apply it tomorrow."
Guillaume Dezoteux (Head of Vehicle Performance): "We started the day in a pretty unusual way with an additional 10-minute "familiarisation session" aimed at learning the track layout changes. The circuit was changed in turns 12 and 13, getting narrower to reduce the amount of kerb riding, which was damaging the tyres. Both drivers had a chance to get familiar with this change, and it appeared clear that staying within track limits would be the main challenge today.
"The first Sprint Shootout was intense, with a lot of traffic and many cars having lap times deleted due to exceeding track limits. Unfortunately, Yuki got his second lap deleted, which brought his session to an end. On Liam's side, he made it to the second Sprint Shootout. He was improving on this second lap but went wide in Turn 15, and the time which would have put him ahead of Bottas in P13 was deleted, leaving him on the 14th spot on the grid for the Sprint race.
"The Sprint race didn't last long for Liam. His initial getaway wasn't great, but he recovered very well in Turn 1, keeping the inside line, and gaining positions. Going into Turn 2, he was on the outside, which was very dirty, and together with the tailwind, he lost the car. Yuki's race was looking positive on the medium tyre, which was holding on better than the soft compound. The two Safety Car periods helped the soft tyre runners get to the end, and we couldn't really make progress. Obviously, we're disappointed with the Sprint result, but we gathered very useful data for the race tomorrow. Now we're reviewing the various strategies and we're looking forward to seeing an eventful race on this slippery track."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Lusail here.