14/04/2017
NEWS STORY
Daniil Kvyat: "It was a very busy FP2 after not doing many laps in the first practice session because it was very hot and the race here takes place at night... So we did many things this evening - long runs, short runs - and I think we covered everything we wanted to do. We now have a lot of data to go through overnight and we believe we can make a step forward for tomorrow and the rest of the weekend. We will try and do our best and be as well prepared as possible - the weekend has started positively for us and hopefully it will carry on this way."
Carlos Sainz: "Quite a frustrating start to the weekend here in Bahrain for me. Today's FP2 was very important and to only be able to do a couple of laps is quite unfortunate. This is a bit of a setback for the weekend, but we will try and analyse and pick-up as much information as possible from the others, cover this lack of data that we have right now, and try to recover it tomorrow. Unfortunately FP3 isn't a very representative session either, which means we will go blind into qualifying and the race, but this is the situation right now. I'm confident that we can end up doing a good job."
Jody Egginton (Head of Vehicle Performance): "Today has been challenging in some respects, with a combination of high temperatures and low grip in FP1 which made running difficult, and a car issue in FP2 ending the running early for Carlos. However, we have collected important long-run data in the evening session which both drivers will benefit from. In terms of run programme, FP1 was fairly standard with the normal checks and sweeps being conducted. However, with low grip conditions and medium tyre, the amount of meaningful running we could conduct was limited. With FP2 taking place in conditions more aligned to qualifying and race, we had a full run programme prepared for both tyres in order to map the Soft and Supersoft compounds in short and long run conditions. Unfortunately for Carlos, we suffered an exhaust failure during his first run of the session which ended his running due to the time required to replace the effected parts. For Daniil, the run programme was completed and long-run performance was fairly encouraging. However, there is still work to do to get the car optimised, especially for short-runs, but we have a good idea of what is required to extract the performance from the car and we will be working hard overnight analysing the data to allow us to make a step forwards in tomorrow's sessions and ultimately the race."
Check out our Friday gallery from Bahrain, here.