Mercedes
Nico Rosberg: “For me it wasn't a bad day. I did my homework in the morning session, had a good quick lap and also tried a bit of work on setup. But it's a shame for the spectators out there. They pay a lot of money to be here and didn't see a single car driving in the afternoon. So let's see what tomorrow brings - but the forecast is not good…”
Lewis Hamilton: “It's been a beautiful day... I love it when it rains! Just not on practice day! The weather has just been unbelievable. I don't think I've ever seen rain like this. It's kind of cool to watch, in many ways, but I feel terrible for all the fans who turned out today. I didn't complete many laps in the morning as the track was drying out and I wanted to save my tyres for the afternoon session - but in the end we didn't get to go out. I would actually have liked to, just to see what it would have been like in those conditions, but of course the safety of the marshals and everyone else has to come first. I was surprised by how much grip there was on the intermediates in the few laps I did get, though. The track surface varies massively between circuits and I think this is the most grip I can remember having on those tyres. It really did feel very good, so we'll have a lot of fun if it's like that in the race. There's not a lot you can do in these situations. You want to be out there but you just have to sit and try to enjoy some down time, then make sure you're fresh and ready to go the next day. We've got very little information to work with now, so the rest of the weekend will be intense. But it's the same for everyone, so we'll just have to make sure we make the best job of it. Fingers crossed we can get out there tomorrow and on Sunday. If the rain really is going to be heavier tomorrow like they're saying then maybe I'll take the day off and go to the movies. But the main thing now is that we're able to have a race!”
Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical): “Intermediate conditions at the beginning of P1 meant that we were able to do some limited running with both drivers to get a feel for the balance of the car in the wet and also to perform a couple of practice starts. The pace seemed to be encouraging from what we could see. Later in the session, however, the circuit was drying quite significantly, so putting in more laps would have damaged the tyres very quickly. Since we only have the one set of intermediates for the whole of Friday, we therefore chose to save them for P2. Unfortunately, the whole of the afternoon session was cancelled, so that was perhaps an opportunity lost. The forecast suggests more of the same for tomorrow but we hope for the sake of the spectators that we will be able to run in qualifying.”
