The first day of the second week of testing is completed. We had a day with a couple of spins, a few red flags. We started the day on a wet track, and the wind kept blowing from all sides today. But what did the drivers had to say about this? We collected their quotes.
Lewis Hamilton
I only got 14 laps in today, but during those 14 laps, everything was feeling fine. It’s obviously not ideal that we didn’t get a full day of running in and we experienced this issue, but there are lots of learnings to take from today. Rather than looking at the negatives, we’ve discovered some things we need to work on, and we’ll keep pushing hard to resolve them and keep working away. I’m looking forward to being back in the car tomorrow morning and adding to the mileage we’ve already achieved.
Valtteri Bottas
Obviously, the running today in the morning was slightly limited with the wet weather. But we got a couple of runs in with the intermediate tyre, which is always useful. We had a good feeling on that tire in those conditions and gathered some good information. The session was slightly disrupted by red flags, so we missed some of the test items we planned to do. However, we still completed a few good long runs and set-up work – so got some decent mileage in. I have one afternoon left in the car, which I’m really looking forward to. I feel pretty ready to race. We had a few issues here and there, but the team is working on resolving them and we’ll sort everything out for tomorrow.
Nicolas Latiffi
Overall it was a positive day and I got to experience the car in both trims that you would in a race weekend. We focused our morning on performance runs and I was finally able to feel the limits of the car. Unfortunately, the track conditions this morning hampered our running, and from that point of view our performance simulations weren’t as representative as I would have liked. In the afternoon we moved on to conducting our race simulations and I was able to get a lot of laps on the board. I think today went well, we had no issues and I was able to make up for the lost mileage from the previous days. This was the last time I will have had the chance to drive the car, I am looking forward to arriving in Melbourne and making my Formula One Grand Prix debut with the team.
Lance Stroll
We put in a lot of laps – my neck’s going to be a bit stiff in the morning! We got held up a bit by the rain in the morning and it was really windy in the afternoon, which compromised running for everyone a bit. But all-in-all some solid running and the car felt pretty good out there. It’s testing, so we don’t know what everyone else is doing – but what matters is that we’ve been making progress over the past couple of weeks. We’ve definitely improved the car in terms of the balance on both short and long runs and the team have done a great job of dialing it in more and more as the days have gone by. It’s a bit weird having less time in the car compared to previous years, but I’d say this has been my best pre-season so far. I’m feeling fresh from all that off-season training and ready to go racing.
Pierre Gasly
It was a pretty good and intense day. The track was damp this morning which meant we had to do most of the work in the afternoon. We did over 100 laps after lunch which was great and managed to do a race simulation and push the car a bit more to see what we’ve got. Compared to last week, the conditions were slightly more difficult because of the wind which made the car challenging to drive at times. There are a couple of areas we need to improve on, but I can say it was a decent test for me. I know we have a bit more left in our pockets and I’m pretty pleased with the car, however, Melbourne is quite different from Barcelona, so even if I don’t want to get too excited, I’m pretty confident going to the first race
This article will be updated once more quotes come in
