Fri: Force India, Toro Rosso, McLaren, Haas
Toro Rosso continued their impressive display in Singapore after both Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat finished in the top ten after FP2.
Force India:
Nico Hulkenberg: “It’s a good starting point for our weekend: we stuck to our plan, completed all our runs and got plenty of learning out of the laps we did. There’s still some work to do to be fully happy with the car, but we looked quite competitive. We are still trying to understand where we stand in terms of long run pace, but the first impression is that our one-lap pace looks good. Most teams usually take a big step forward between Friday and Saturday, so we are not getting carried away. We’ve done some good preparation work ahead of the race, which means tomorrow morning we can move on and switch our focus to qualifying.”
Sergio Perez: “It was not the easiest day in the car. There are a few issues that we still need to solve and it means that I’m lacking confidence with the car – and that’s not ideal for a street circuit. We need to make some good decisions tonight to find a direction that works for me. I also had a brake problem during our long run towards the end of second practice, so my session was not very smooth. Even when you don’t have the best Friday, you can still recover and have a good weekend. I won’t change my approach tomorrow – the focus remains getting the car in the best shape for qualifying.”
Toro Rosso:
Carlos Sainz Jr: “I think we can be happy with today. For the last three races we had been struggling a bit on Friday, finding it hard to classify further than P15 or P16… So it was good to be back in the top ten today in both practice sessions. Of course, we will push to do the same tomorrow, we’re strong here and it motivates the team to move forward – the car works well and we will go through plenty of data tonight in order to be ready for the rest of the weekend – I look forward to it, I enjoy racing at this track!”
Daniil Kvyat: “We tried many things today and I think it was a stimulating Friday. We will now try and learn as much as we can for tomorrow and try to maximize the potential which I feel we’ve got here – I think we can be strong and I’m happy to see that we are looking more competitive than in previous races. Obviously we need to keep working hard, but I’m ready for it!”
McLaren:
Fernando Alonso: “When I stopped the car on track, I was fortunate enough to be pushed back to the pits because there wasn’t an opening on the circuit to park the car. Our pace hasn’t been quite as good today as we’d anticipated. As a result, we’ve got quite a lot of work to do before we can be as competitive as we want to be this weekend. We just couldn’t quite access the grip out there today, so we’re going to need a decent gain in pace to be competitive. Having said all that, hopefully we can improve things overnight – it’s going to be a busy evening.”
Jenson Button: “When I stopped the car on track, I was fortunate enough to be pushed back to the pits because there wasn’t an opening on the circuit to park the car. Our pace hasn’t been quite as good today as we’d anticipated. As a result, we’ve got quite a lot of work to do before we can be as competitive as we want to be this weekend. We just couldn’t quite access the grip out there today, so we’re going to need a decent gain in pace to be competitive. Having said all that, hopefully we can improve things overnight – it’s going to be a busy evening.”
Haas:
Esteban Gutierrez: “It was the worst Friday you could imagine for us. I didn’t get a lap in this morning, and then we had some issues this afternoon that we need to solve. There was just no performance. It’s a very bad way to start one of the most difficult grand prix of the year. Tomorrow is another day.”
Romain Grosjean: “It was the worst Friday you could imagine for us. I didn’t get a lap in this morning, and then we had some issues this afternoon that we need to solve. There was just no performance. It’s a very bad way to start one of the most difficult grand prix of the year. Tomorrow is another day.”