Fri: Mercedes, Ferrari, Lotus

Editor

No surprises as Lewis Hamilton takes P1 before crashing, but Lotus are looking decent.

Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton:
"The ending might have been so-so but it’s generally been a pretty good day. I made a couple of mistakes – pushing too hard and going over the kerbs at the final chicane and then what happened at the end there. Looking at the replays, I wasn’t going that fast. But it was like sheet ice into Turn 10 so the car aquaplaned and I went off. It maybe wasn’t the right call to go out but, with the weather as it eventually turned out, it didn’t affect our running. I’m fine and it looks like it’s just the front wing that was damaged to it’s not the end of the world. In the dry, the car is feeling really good here and our long run pace was encouraging. Ferrari look like they’ve upped their pace so it will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow – but I’m sure we’ll still be strong. It’s great to be back in Montreal and I’m feeling good for the weekend."

Nico Rosberg: "For me, it was a decent day. We got some practice in for qualifying and the race and that all went well. At the end of session two, we went out again to practice some starts in the heavy rain. But the conditions were really tough out there. I don’t know exactly where we are with our speed but for sure Ferrari seems to be a threat. They were very quick today."

Ferrari
Sebastian Vettel:
"The rain reminded of me the race on Sunday four years ago, back then we had also massive rain for a long time, it was a bit like that today. It’s a shame that we couldn’t get out anymore, but we did the maximum to prepare for Saturday and Sunday in a very short amount of time, I think we had only just half an hour. We didn’t have so much running this morning, but everything went according to plan. This morning we had a look on a bit more fuel, trying to get an idea for the race: we didn’t know when the rain would come this afternoon, this is maybe the reason why we didn’t run so much like the others. About my race pace, I haven’t seen much of the others yet but the car felt right, now we have to see where we are. I think we can still improve. I am not entirely happy with the runs I had, but I think anybody was with the short amount of time we had today."

Kimi Raikkonen: "Today everything worked as we expected, we went on with our program trying as always to improve and we are quite happy with the way things worked. The weather was a bit tricky: the rain was expected in the afternoon, then we had to change a bit our program and decided certain things to be done in the morning. It’s hard to say where we are, because we did not get enough running, but it was all fine. It’s only Friday and we have to wait and see. There’s still a lot of work to be done to do well in qualifying, for sure here is easier compared to Monaco, but it will depend on many things, the weather conditions first of all. Tomorrow we’ll see where we are and then we’ll do the best over the weekend."

Lotus
Pastor Maldonado:
 "I’m happy with today. We didn’t get the lap I wanted in the morning, but the car felt good for the dry part of the second session. We’ve got good pace on the straights and the car is working well through the slow sections too. I think we can make some extra progress tomorrow and we could be set for a strong weekend."

Romain Grosjean: "The car felt good straight away and we had a set-up which worked well. It’s frustrating to lose some track time because of the rain, but it’s the same for everyone. We’ve got good potential tomorrow, hopefully we can get some decent time in FP3 then show what we’ve got in qualifying. This place holds good memories for me so it would be fantastic to have a good result here this weekend."