Toro Rosso
Max Verstappen: “This morning’s FP1 was a good start to the weekend. We started to understand the track and the car, as well as working on the balance. Of course, the position where we ended up this morning isn’t where we wanted to be, but we are not that worried yet. We had a similar situation in Brazil and in the end we were competitive. In this afternoon’s FP2 we continued our programme, trying to set up the car in a better way and I think we went in the right direction. If we now put everything we’ve learned from today in place, we are almost there. I hope for a good rest of the weekend here in Abu Dhabi.”
Carlos Sainz: “It hasn’t been a straightforward Friday… definitely not the day we wanted. We had a few issues in the morning which didn’t allow us to run as much as we would’ve wanted. Therefore, it wasn’t a very representative FP1. This afternoon everything was going well, but with 45 minutes of the session left the engine suddenly switched off… It’s not a good way to start the last race weekend of the season, but luckily it’s still only Friday and we can work on this in order to come back stronger tomorrow.”
Phil Charles (Chief Race Engineer): “I am sad to say that this is another day where I am apologising to Carlos as he had more problems in both FP1 and FP2, when his engine switched off due to an oil pressure drop, which limited his running today. In terms of the car performance, we struggled in sector 3. This is a section of the track where we would usually expect our car to be strong, so we clearly have got some work to do. Our long pace looks relatively better so we will carefully analyse car set-up and tyre temperatures tonight. Looking forward to Sunday, from what we have learnt today I think managing front graining will be key to good performance and could well give a big advantage in terms of strategy freedom.”
FP2 REPORT: Rosberg hits back in FP2 as Ferrari faces fight
Eric Silbermann's Abu Dhabi grumpy preview
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