Toro Rosso's Spanish GP weekend got off to a slow but steady start as they joined the newcomers at the bottom of the timesheets...
Toro Rosso:
Jean-Eric Vergne: "This morning we continued with some aero evaluation that we had started at the Mugello test. In the afternoon, we worked mainly towards the race and I feel we found some good solutions. Now, we must start to think about qualifying and how to improve the car balance, but so far it does not look too bad. I tried both types of tyre and, as you would expect the Option brings a big advantage in terms of lap time on low fuel and the Prime has a longer life, but all the same it will be interesting to see what will be the best tyre strategy for Sunday. The new parts? It's hard to say what improvement they have brought, as the other teams have been developing their cars too."
Daniel Ricciardo: "We tried a few different downforce settings in the morning and we were not too convinced by our pace. So we decided to make a few changes to the car for the afternoon session in terms of how to run our aero package. It gave me a slightly better feeling from the car, but we still need to work hard on set-up to try and find something extra there, if we want to be in contention for Q3 on Saturday. I have a few ideas of what we want to do and the engineers, who are probably a bit smarter than me, have definitely got some ideas up their sleeves."
Caterham:
Heikki Kovalainen: "A pretty standard Friday for us. We made a couple of set-up changes early on in FP2 that improved the balance and I think we've ended up closer to where we want to be today. As it's been all season, tyre management is going to be vital here, especially on Sunday, and from what we've seen from the tyre degradation patterns on both tyre choices I think we need to do more work on managing wear rates, but if we can do that I think we'll be ok tomorrow, and on Sunday."
Vitaly Petrov: "I'm relatively pleased with today but it was a bit of an odd couple of sessions for us. This morning we did all the runs on the hard tyres and couldn't really find a balance I could push with, and then this afternoon we managed to dial out the understeer we had on both the hard and soft tyres, but suddenly found we had oversteer that hadn't been there before. I think this is something that's affecting quite a few of the teams, and it's not what we were expecting after the Bahrain race and the Mugello test, but we'll work on it tonight and I'm sure we'll find a solution for FP3 and qualifying."
Marussia:
Timo Glock: "To be honest we've had two pretty difficult sessions today as we've struggled with the balance of the car. It's been very nervous on both sets of tyres so a little disappointing that we seem to still have this problem. We'll just have to take a good look at the data and see what we can find to improve the situation for tomorrow."
Charles Pic: "I am quite happy with the way today has been. We made good progress across the two sessions and I feel the benefit of the new update. I think there is more we can find overnight to prepare us for qualifying, but generally it feels like we can have a good rest of the weekend. A good start I think."
HRT:
Pedro de la Rosa: "Today was the day to try out the aero package we've brought to Barcelona, so we completed various short stints to see how the car behaved with the changes. It was interesting because the car has effectively taken a step forwards, but we need an even bigger step, especially at such a tough circuit as this one where there are many quick turns and where you need to improve the balance of the car. There's still plenty to do and a lot of data to analyze to have a better understanding of how to get the most out of these upgrades."
Narain Karthikeyan: "I'm disappointed to have not got any laps under my belt today; it's certainly not how I was aiming to start my weekend in Barcelona. Tomorrow will be an uphill struggle as we've only got one hour in the morning to get the car ready for qualifying in the afternoon, so we're really going to have to get our heads down and work hard. Hopefully we can make up for the time lost today and turn things around tomorrow."
Related Links
FP2: Button edges Vettel in Barcelona
Gallery: The best of Friday's pictures
Pics: Getting nosey in Barcelona
