Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: Today went smoothly and we were able to run through some tests without issue. We steadily improved the car during the day but there is still more to come tomorrow, especially for Nicholas.
It has obviously been hot today – and this will continue for the rest of the weekend – but the track has been in good condition and the tyres have behaved well. We have some work to do before Sunday to understand the best way to approach the Grand Prix in terms of tyre degradation and strategy, but we have made a decent start today and we have a solid platform that we can build on.
Alex Albon: It was a good day for us as the car was feeling really good around this circuit, so I’m feeling positive. Hopefully we can use this and do a bit more and come out even stronger for tomorrow. All in all, I’m really happy with today.
Nicholas Latifi: Overall it was a tricky day straight from FP1 - I just didn’t get the best feeling with the car which is something we’ll have to investigate to see if there was something not quite right. I don’t feel there was anything upgrade related which is good sign, so we’ll just have to see. It’s a positive that we have some good cross car data and are now running both cars on the new aero package, which means double data for the team. Let’s see what we can do overnight and tomorrow.