Fri: FIndia, Lotus, Sauber

Editor

There were top ten times in Friday's second practice in Belgium for Nico Hulkenberg, Romain Grosjean and both Sauber drivers…

Force India:
Nico Hulkenberg: "The car felt pretty good and I am fairly happy with the baseline set-up. Obviously, we will need to keep working, fine-tuning the balance and trying to find the last few tenths of performance, but I think we’re in a good place going into the weekend. The red flags in the afternoon meant we didn’t get all the long-run data and we will head into the race without the best knowledge of how the tyres will behave, but that's the same for everyone."

Sergio Perez: "It was a really productive day despite the disruption that the red flags brought towards the end of FP2. We were able to get some good information, perhaps not as much as we would have wanted on the long runs, but overall I am happy with the day. We took two very different set-up directions with the two cars, which means we have plenty of data to analyse tonight, but I am confident for tomorrow."

Lotus:
Romain Grosjean: "Seventh was a good placing for us after a challenging morning and noticing tyre performance dropping quite quickly on a high speed track. It took time to adapt and we made some good calls on the option tyres and that worked for us. Unfortunately we couldn’t do a long run with the red flags. I think some of the performances out there suggest that some teams will improve for qualifying so it gives us a good challenge and the race should be interesting."

Pastor Maldonado: "I lost the car in the middle of the corner and caught a slippery kerb, there’s not a lot of space there and I hit the barrier. It was unlucky because I almost saved the car. I won’t dwell on it. It’s a difficult track when you make a mistake especially in the narrow second sector. I think we completed the tests we needed to in the morning, and in the afternoon we were compromised in the long runs because of the red flags. It wasn’t the best day but we have good potential for tomorrow."

Sauber:
Marcus Ericsson: "In FP1 we tried different set-ups on the car. In the afternoon we then continued to build on FP1, doing short and long-runs on the soft and medium tyres. Especially on soft tyres, I was satisfied with the balance of the car. Unfortunately, at the end of the session I made a mistake in Pouhon. I touched the grass, the car snapped and I hit the wall. I want to apologise to the team for this incident, which has given them a lot of extra work. It is racing, sometimes it happens, but when it happens it is, for sure, frustrating. Before the accident it had been a good day for us, and some of the outcomes from what we were doing were positive."

Felipe Nasr: "I had two good practice sessions today. I am satisfied with the overall balance of the car, which gives us a good direction for the weekend. In the morning the temperatures were cooler, so we knew there was room for improvement. For FP2 we then made the right changes to the car. I still have some small margin for improvement on soft tyres, as I was stuck in traffic on my best lap. Overall I am quite pleased that the engine specification is a benefit for us here in Spa. It is a good start to the weekend, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us."