News
18th July 2014, 17:22
Daniel Ricciardo on why outright performance will not neccessarily determine Sunday's race; Jean-Eric Vergne on why Toro Rosso have a lot of work to do to improve; Adrian Sutil on challenging for the top ten at his home race. The drivers and senior team personnel report back after a sweltering opening day at Hockenheim...
Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo, P1 - 1:19.697, 4th; P2 - 1:18.443, 3rd
"I think tyres and weather will define the race on Sunday. Today we were happy with our progress and it seems to be one of the closer gaps for a while, but it's tomorrow when we'll see how close we really are. I think we had a good car today and we extracted pretty much everything we could out of the practice today. Hopefully we can have more of a fight with the leaders this weekend."
Sebastian Vettel, P1 - 1:20.097, 6th; P2 - 1:19.248, 8th
"I think we can improve from there for tomorrow. I don't think not having the FRIC suspension on the car made too much difference to us today, although I haven't had a proper look at the other cars yet. I think it will be fairly close between the cars this weekend. It's nice to be on track here near to where I grew up and I'm looking forward to the rest of the weekend."
Toro Rosso
Daniil Kvyat, P1 - 1:20.337, 9th; P2 - 1:19.452, 12th
"Another normal Friday where we worked through our programme as much as possible. We will have a look at all the data tonight and prepare ourselves for tomorrow, where I think we can do well. The heat? Well it just means we need to be careful in looking after our tyres but it's the same for everyone, so we will just need to do our job."
Jean-Eric Vergne, P1 - 1:20.586, 12th; P2 - 1:19.760, 15th
"I wouldn't say we had a perfect Friday today. I wasn't really happy with the car balance during both sessions and this means we have now a lot of work to do. We will have a look at all the data we collected to improve the car and aim for a good Qualifying session. Especially here on this track, it's important to have the highest possible starting position. It's possible, we have done it in the past so I remain confident for tomorrow."
Phil Charles, Toro Rosso chief race engineer
"We worked through a lot of our programme today. We had some tests to do across the two cars, some small new aero bits that we've compared. Even though we managed to get through our programme, it's clear to say that we had quite a tricky day and neither driver is particularly happy with their balance. We've also struggled a little bit with general lack of rear grip, so we've got a little bit of homework to do tonight. We just need to understand where our happiness needs to be with the car in terms of our set up and try to improve on the rear grip. We are not where we normally are or where we want to be on a Friday, so there's some work to do tonight."
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 track support leader
"We ran the new software upgrades trialled in Silverstone and saw a good step in energy management and ICE performance. Temperatures have obviously been very high today but each element of the Power Unit has worked well, as expected, which will allow us to push tomorrow and get a bit higher in the times."
Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez, P2 - 1:20.504, 18th
"In the afternoon I was trying to catch up on the programme as I missed FP1. I mainly focused on getting a feeling for the car. We are experimenting and trying different things and the two cars have different set-ups. During my last stint I improved quite a lot. Now, we are going to analyse the data and decide in which direction we should go tomorrow."
Adrian Sutil, P1 - 1:20.505, 10th; P2 - 1:19.417, 11th
"It was a difficult day. Because of the high temperatures it was not easy to find a good set-up. However, this was the same situation for everyone. Due to the extremely high track temperatures, it was tough to manage the tyres. Besides that, I also had a lot of understeer. I think it is positive that we are close to the top ten. The objective for tomorrow is to keep up today's performance."
Giedo van der Garde, P1 - 1:20.782, 16th
"It was a good session. I was able to run through our programme this morning. I was doing some set-up work. We tried a few things, some of them were positive and some did not work. Now we are going to analyse the data. I think the team was happy with my feedback and the direction we are going in. All in all, I was not focusing on fast laps, rather on consistent running, working on tyre management and doing set-up work."
Giampaolo Dall'Ara , Sauber head of track engineering
"The day went according to plan, and we were able to complete our planned programme with Adrian, Esteban and Giedo. The morning was quite good in terms of making progress with the car's set-up and the preparation for the weekend. In the afternoon Esteban needed a little bit of time to find the rhythm after sitting out FP1. Due to the high temperatures, it was very difficult to manage the tyres correctly. With the low fuel performance we can be pretty satisfied. On the long runs we are not yet where we want to be, so we will look into that this evening. However, overall it was a good start to the weekend."
More to follow...
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Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo, P1 - 1:19.697, 4th; P2 - 1:18.443, 3rd
"I think tyres and weather will define the race on Sunday. Today we were happy with our progress and it seems to be one of the closer gaps for a while, but it's tomorrow when we'll see how close we really are. I think we had a good car today and we extracted pretty much everything we could out of the practice today. Hopefully we can have more of a fight with the leaders this weekend."
Sebastian Vettel, P1 - 1:20.097, 6th; P2 - 1:19.248, 8th
"I think we can improve from there for tomorrow. I don't think not having the FRIC suspension on the car made too much difference to us today, although I haven't had a proper look at the other cars yet. I think it will be fairly close between the cars this weekend. It's nice to be on track here near to where I grew up and I'm looking forward to the rest of the weekend."
Toro Rosso
Daniil Kvyat, P1 - 1:20.337, 9th; P2 - 1:19.452, 12th
"Another normal Friday where we worked through our programme as much as possible. We will have a look at all the data tonight and prepare ourselves for tomorrow, where I think we can do well. The heat? Well it just means we need to be careful in looking after our tyres but it's the same for everyone, so we will just need to do our job."
Jean-Eric Vergne, P1 - 1:20.586, 12th; P2 - 1:19.760, 15th
"I wouldn't say we had a perfect Friday today. I wasn't really happy with the car balance during both sessions and this means we have now a lot of work to do. We will have a look at all the data we collected to improve the car and aim for a good Qualifying session. Especially here on this track, it's important to have the highest possible starting position. It's possible, we have done it in the past so I remain confident for tomorrow."
Phil Charles, Toro Rosso chief race engineer
"We worked through a lot of our programme today. We had some tests to do across the two cars, some small new aero bits that we've compared. Even though we managed to get through our programme, it's clear to say that we had quite a tricky day and neither driver is particularly happy with their balance. We've also struggled a little bit with general lack of rear grip, so we've got a little bit of homework to do tonight. We just need to understand where our happiness needs to be with the car in terms of our set up and try to improve on the rear grip. We are not where we normally are or where we want to be on a Friday, so there's some work to do tonight."
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 track support leader
"We ran the new software upgrades trialled in Silverstone and saw a good step in energy management and ICE performance. Temperatures have obviously been very high today but each element of the Power Unit has worked well, as expected, which will allow us to push tomorrow and get a bit higher in the times."
Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez, P2 - 1:20.504, 18th
"In the afternoon I was trying to catch up on the programme as I missed FP1. I mainly focused on getting a feeling for the car. We are experimenting and trying different things and the two cars have different set-ups. During my last stint I improved quite a lot. Now, we are going to analyse the data and decide in which direction we should go tomorrow."
Adrian Sutil, P1 - 1:20.505, 10th; P2 - 1:19.417, 11th
"It was a difficult day. Because of the high temperatures it was not easy to find a good set-up. However, this was the same situation for everyone. Due to the extremely high track temperatures, it was tough to manage the tyres. Besides that, I also had a lot of understeer. I think it is positive that we are close to the top ten. The objective for tomorrow is to keep up today's performance."
Giedo van der Garde, P1 - 1:20.782, 16th
"It was a good session. I was able to run through our programme this morning. I was doing some set-up work. We tried a few things, some of them were positive and some did not work. Now we are going to analyse the data. I think the team was happy with my feedback and the direction we are going in. All in all, I was not focusing on fast laps, rather on consistent running, working on tyre management and doing set-up work."
Giampaolo Dall'Ara , Sauber head of track engineering
"The day went according to plan, and we were able to complete our planned programme with Adrian, Esteban and Giedo. The morning was quite good in terms of making progress with the car's set-up and the preparation for the weekend. In the afternoon Esteban needed a little bit of time to find the rhythm after sitting out FP1. Due to the high temperatures, it was very difficult to manage the tyres correctly. With the low fuel performance we can be pretty satisfied. On the long runs we are not yet where we want to be, so we will look into that this evening. However, overall it was a good start to the weekend."
More to follow...
For tickets to 2014 FORMULA 1 races, click here (http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc9 24805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftickets.formula1.com%2F).
For FORMULA 1 merchandise,