USA Grand Prix – Friday 21st October 2016. Austin, Texas

Ferrari

It wasn’t a great day for Ferrari. Vettel had a small front wing failure that resulted in damage to the right-hand mirror and meant a loss of valuable track time. Raikkonen meanwhile struggled to get a balance in the morning and killed his tyres in the afternoon. There’s work to be done here this evening…

Kimi Raikkonen: “It was a tricky day: in the first session, we struggled to find the right set up, and in the second practice I went off with new tires and couldn’t set a lap time. Apart from that it was a normal Friday, it looks worse than it is. We did a normal set up work and sometimes it goes like this. We did not have any major issue, we just tried to make a sense out of it and get the car exactly where we wanted. Now we have some work to do on the set up and make it correct for tomorrow. The Mercedes look very strong as they have been all year, but we’ll do our best.”

Sebastian Vettel: “To be fair, It was a tough day. This morning we had some problems with a little wing that failed and came off, so we lost some track time, which was a bit “costy” for the afternoon because we couldn’t re-balance the car. We are a bit on the backfoot today and I am not entirely happy with the car balance yet; it is a little bit too nervous, but I think for tomorrow we can improve. On Friday usually you don’t see the full picture, so hopefully tomorrow we will be a lot stronger. Today the Red Bulls were very quick, there is no doubt, but I still think we have a chance. It’s Friday and I wouldn’t worry too much. You never know what the others are doing, we knew about ourselves, but we didn’t have the best day. For sure it will be very close with them and it will be difficult to match them tomorrow with the speed that they showed today, but I think the Ferrari you saw today is not the Ferrari you will see tomorrow.”

Renault

Renault had a scrappy day: Magnussen lost a little time in FP1 with an electrical problem, while Palmer had spins in Turn 18 in FP1, and Turn 8 in FP2 as he struggled with his RS16 while learning the circuit.

Kevin Magnussen: “It’s great to drive around the Circuit Of The Americas even if we did have a couple of small issues today. I think we’ve got scope to be further up the order, which means we should be fighting for points come race day. That’s what we all want.”

Jolyon Palmer: “My first impressions of COTA are what an awesome track! I did have a couple of moments learning the limits here and we’ve got a bit of work on the set-up, but nothing other than the usual work you do between Friday and Saturday.”

Bob Bell, Chief Technical Officer: “A reasonable if a little scrappy day for us. Jolyon’s been learning the circuit whilst Kevin’s morning was partially affected by an electrical issue, then in the afternoon his soft tyres were flat-spotted so the long-run programme had to be modified. Nevertheless, we have sufficient data to head to qualifying and hopefully take a step forward.”

Force India

Hulkenberg and Perez were both happy with the way their days went (half a day in the latter’s case), and felt they arrived at a good starting set-up. Celis was pleased with his performance, when he ran Perez’s car in FP1.

Nico Hulkenberg: “It was a straightforward Friday – the way you want to start a weekend, really. We didn’t have any major issues with the car and we were able to do a good amount of mileage. We tried a few different things with our set-up this afternoon, so the job tonight is to try and understand the best direction to take going forward. I am reasonably happy with the balance of the car, but I know we can make some improvements tonight. So we’re in a good place to start and I am optimistic for tomorrow and Sunday.”

Sergio Perez: “I was only in the car this afternoon, but I got up to speed very quickly and I am quite happy with my laps – I think we’re in a promising position. The car feels okay and I think we found the set-up window quite early. Nico tried a different approach to me and it should have helped the team get all the information we need to make a good decision for tomorrow.”

Alfonso Celis: “I’m pleased about the improvement I could see throughout the morning, especially in the slow and medium-speed corners, and in the braking zones. I only had two sets of supersoft tyres available, so I had to be smart with how I used them. You never get everything out of a lap on the first attempt and by the end of the run your tyres are no longer at their best, but taking this into account, I am pleased with what I achieved. Most importantly, I went out to collect data for the team and we got all we needed, which is what I am meant to do. On a personal level, it was great to see many Mexican fans out in the stands. I won’t be in Mexico City next week, but I was really happy to see support from my home country – it was very motivating.”

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: “We are pleased with how things went today. This morning Alfonso picked up where he left off in Monza and did a good job on this difficult and technical circuit. All the drivers were happy with the baseline balance, but the conditions were very windy, which added an extra challenge for setting up the cars. The main focus was on high fuel running and understanding the three tyre compounds, which performed as we expected with no real surprises. Because it was so wet last year, we have very little reference data in the dry, especially at these warm temperatures, so there was even more learning to be done. Overall, we’ve made a solid start and I believe we are in good shape heading into the weekend.”

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