Team Talk - Friday in Spielberg

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Motor Racing - Formula One World Championship - Austrian Grand Prix - Practice Day - Spielberg, Austria

Will Stevens: “Overall it’s been a good start to the weekend and I’m feeling quite positive. We’ve done some good work with our programme today and our long and short run pace seems good here versus the cars around us. We’re in a good place compared to the McLarens ahead. The weather looks a little unpredictable, and if we manage to miss the rain, it will certainly be cool and cloudy for the next couple of days. I think we can do a good job here so we’ll have our heads down tonight to look at what we need to do from here.”

Roberto Merhi: “I lost a bit of track time today with a small issue, so I haven’t had a completely smooth day and I think this is reflected in the lap time. The afternoon was a bit more straightforward and the pace was starting to come towards the end of the session, so I’m sure we can continue to improve tomorrow morning in preparation for qualifying. It’s a great lap here; really enjoyable to drive and quite challenging. We saw that today, up and down the field, so it’s a circuit that could bring some opportunities for the race.”

John Booth, Team Principal: “We’ve had a reasonably good start to our weekend here in Spielberg, completing our planned programme with Will and Roberto. We had a small problem with Roberto towards the end of the morning session, but we were soon on top of this and back on track for the afternoon. There are good signs for our relative pace here and it’s a track that could spring a few surprises. We’ve seen today how tricky sector 3 can be, in particular that final corner. I think there is good reason to look forward to a positive qualifying and race, and hopefully the weather is the only unknown quantity now.”