22/03/2024
NEWS STORY
Esteban Ocon: "Today was productive and it was good to get out on track in front of full grandstands on a Friday, which is always the case with the fans here in Melbourne.
The field is very tight, as it tends to be at Albert Park, so it will be important to extract the maximum from the package, as it could be the difference between one or two rows on the grid. There's still some things we can improve ahead of tomorrow and we will keep working hard overnight to get prepared for Qualifying. It was interesting today to test the new softer compound tyre for this event compared to last year. In general, this is a low degradation circuit, so these changes could offer up some different strategy options and opportunities for the Grand Prix on Sunday."
Pierre Gasly: "It's been a busy day for us here in Melbourne. We had a couple of small issues on the car in Free Practice 1, which limited our running a little bit. We managed to fix those ahead of the second session to have a much better feeling in the car. The overall balance was in a good place.
We were probably stronger on the Medium tyre and that means we have some work to do on the Softs, which we seemed to have more difficulties with. There's some work ahead of us understand how best to get the tyres in the right window ahead of Qualifying. We know the situation we are in and we know it will be challenging so we will keep working hard to improve what we have in our hands. Tyre degradation looked quite high on long runs, which could mean the race will be more eventful."
Check out our Friday gallery from Melbourne here.