Friday quotes: STR, Renault, Haas, Sauber

Editor

It wasn’t a great Friday for Toro Rosso, Renault and Haas at Monza as they failed to break into the top ten while Sauber were the usual P19 and P20.

Toro Rosso:
Carlos Sainz Jr: “Not the birthday I wished for! I knew since yesterday that we were going to get a grid penalty for changing part of the Power Unit, so that wasn’t a surprise, but today’s PU issue is definitely not something we welcome! This didn’t allow us to complete our programme and we know that we’re up for a very difficult weekend here in Monza. We will of course keep our chin up and keep pushing – I have to say I’m feeling good in the car, it’s very light as we are running very low downforce to try and compensate our engine deficit… It’s tricky out there, but at least I’m enjoying it and hopefully we can extract the maximum out of the car tomorrow and on Sunday.”

Daniil Kvyat: “Not a good Friday. I didn’t feel comfortable in the car today and nothing really worked as well as it should have. We now need to review everything overnight, understand the reason for this and hopefully find a better solution for tomorrow.”

Renault:
Nico Hulkenberg:
 ‘We had a pretty standard Friday. The balance felt good but we have the usual challenges of Monza, top speed isn’t our strength so we need to see how we can address that for Saturday and Sunday.”

Jolyon Palmer: “Overall the car feels okay, though we were not yet as competitive as we’d like to be. We knew Monza wasn’t going to be the easiest track for us, having said that, we know there is still more to come from the car. We did lose some running time this morning following a puncture on one set of tyres, but we managed to catch most of it back up during FP2 this afternoon.”

Haas:
Romain Grosjean:
“I don’t think we should read too much into lap times, to be fair. This morning was very, very tight, and it was again this afternoon. Half a second would put us to P7, or so. Competition-wise, I’m not too worried. There are a few things we want to do on the car. The long run felt OK. We’ll try to make some magic tonight. I think, generally, it was a pretty good day”

Kevin Magnussen: “We have something to understand about the tires. It seems like we’re not in the right window. We’ll try and work hard overnight and see if we can find a solution. The balance in the car isn’t too bad. It’s just a case of putting it all together.”

Sauber:
Marcus Ericsson:
“Overall, today has been a decent day for us. We tested various aerodynamic configurations and focused on scanning through different downforce levels. We managed to work through our planned programme today, which was positive, and are now looking at our data to find the best possible setup for this unique Monza track.”

Pascal Wehrlein: “The day started out quite positively. In the morning, I felt comfortable in the car and was able to complete some decent laps during the session. In FP2, I was not fully comfortable with the balance of the car. We are looking at our data now, and trying to optimise the setup for tomorrow. Overall, it is good that we completed our programme, and I look forward to the rest of the weekend.”