FP1
Weather: Warm and dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 27-29C / 50-56C
F Massa, FW40-03, Mercedes-AMG F1 M08 EQ Power+, 1:45.968 (8th)
L Stroll, FW40-02, Mercedes-AMG F1 M08 EQ Power+, 1:46.649 (11th)
Quickest time: M. Verstappen 1:44.410
FP2
Weather: Warm and dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 26-29C / 35-45C
L Stroll, FW40-02, Mercedes-AMG F1 M08 EQ Power+, 1:44.113 (6th)
F Massa, FW40-03, Mercedes-AMG F1 M08 EQ Power+, 1:44.609 (11th)
Quickest time: M. Verstappen 1:43.362
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: It was a pretty good day and we completed the intended programme. On Lance’s side that involved learning the circuit, as he’s not been here before and it’s quite a tricky track. I’m pleased to say that he drove very well. He progressively built up his pace and managed to put himself sixth in FP2, and he never went off the circuit, which makes him one of a few drivers who had a clean day. So it was a great job by Lance. Felipe did a number of tests for us, but was probably the worst off in terms of traffic throughout the day. It’s been a very scrappy day with a lot of yellow flags and a lot of traffic, so he wasn’t able to put a good lap together in FP2. But we got some good data from his long runs. It’s extremly competitive out there, with some other teams looking fast. So, we’ll work hard on understanding the performance of the car tonight to make sure that we’re in a strong position for qualifying tomorrow.
Lance Stroll: That was good fun, as I am enjoying the track. The car was working well and we didn’t have any issues, which was great. I felt the balance was good and now we just need to think overnight, improve on little bits, come back tomorrow and continue pushing. I think what was really positive was we didn’t have any issues, and nothing that got in the way of us running our programmes. What was really important for me on this kind of track was to get confidence on every lap and every run. Today we did exactly that and didn’t lose any laps with problems or stuff going wrong. Things could be better, as this is still the first day of my first time here and we could improve for the qualifying run, but all in all I have to say it was a very positive day in many ways.
Felipe Massa: It was a good day. I was happy with the car. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really put together a lap on fresh tyres, because of the traffic and the yellow flags. But, I was happy with the balance and I was happy with the long runs. The little mistakes that we made today weren’t a big problem, because we didn’t damage anything, which is always a positive thing here. We’re definitely in the fight, so I hope that we can put everything together for qualifying tomorrow.
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