Fri: Red Bull, Williams, Haas

Editor

Red Bull and Williams both featured inside the top ten in Friday night’s times in Bahrain while Esteban Gutierrez missed out in P12…

Red Bull:
Daniil Kvyat:
“All in all it was a good Friday for us which was crucial after what was a pretty disastrous weekend in Melbourne.  We were aiming to do good mileage, which we achieved and we have a lot of data to go through tonight. We hope to continue this form into tomorrow and maybe make a couple of steps forward.  There were a few surprises today in terms of pace, obviously McLaren was one of them. There may be some more surprises tomorrow depending who makes it click overnight but I’m pretty confident we will be in good shape.”

Daniel Ricciardo: “Dany is probably happier with his Friday than I was with mine. This morning wasn’t too bad but from the very first lap this afternoon I locked the front into Turn 1 which killed that set of tyres. We couldn’t use that set for the long run which compromised our afternoon programme. With the super softs on the low fuel we still needed to find a bit more balance, and with the high fuel run, we were interrupted with the virtual safety cars. We still have some homework to do but we’ll see how tomorrow goes. I think Q3 will be on the edge for us, but the race will be better.”

Williams:
Valtteri Bottas:
“We managed to complete our running as planned with no issues at all so it’s been a good day. The car felt better in the evening practice session with the lower temperatures and less wind, which is good as we need the car to be at its best at the same time of day for qualifying and the race. We can still improve, but what was encouraging was the consistency we showed in long runs on the medium tyre.”

Felipe Massa: “It was a normal Friday for us really. We were focusing on trying to understand the balance of the car, how it performs on different tyres, and we completed some good long runs at the end. We have collected a lot of information today and now we’ll be trying to understand it to make improvements for tomorrow.”

Haas:
Esteban Gutierrez:
“It was very useful for us to have consistent running. Practice one we had a few issues, but luckily we were able to resolve these quickly. Practice two was more straightforward. The wind conditions improved from the first session. We were able to achieve lots of data, which will help with our preparations for tomorrow. Overall, I’m happy how the day went. We still have some work to do for Saturday to fine tune the balance of the car, but I’m looking forward to getting out there for qualifying.”

Romain Grosjean: “FP2 was an interesting session. We ran different tires, medium and then supersoft. This was to allow us to get the best evaluation for the race. We had a bit of an issue with the front wing, but generally it was a good day with some good work. We had both cars out there on track trying to get the best for our setup. Friday night is always the busiest night of the weekend. We make all the changes for tomorrow, hoping to get a bit more performance, hopefully to get us back to where we were this morning. I don’t think it’s impossible that we can be somewhere close to the top-10.”