Feature

Team Talk - Friday in Azerbaijan

Catch up with what all the teams had to say following Friday practice for the eighth race of the 2016 season - the Grand Prix of Europe in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Ferrari

Sebastian Vettel
"In the end I don't think we had a bad day. Obviously, it is not great that Kimi could not finish the session, but after all we did many laps. I got to know the track. It is quite interesting, and that was the main objective today. The car felt good, what is missing is some speed, but I am sure we can improve. We look at what we have done. The track is very difficult, you have quite a long straight leading into hard brakings. At the beginning to find the reference is quite tricky. Your own orientation is not enough and all the trees look the same. After a while you find the rhythm, you know the bumps and then it becomes a bit better. But at the beginning it took some time. Plus it was quite slippery to start, so it was definitely more fun this afternoon. However, it seems a nice track, quite challenging, especially the high speed sections. For us everything felt ok. We are too far away and this is our problem, we are not quick enough. I am sure we will find something for tomorrow. I am confident because I believe in the team, in the car and sometimes also believe in myself!"

Kimi Raikkonen
"The circuit layout is pretty ok, it's different and fun to drive. Being a new track it was quite slippery to start with, but this is normal. The balance of the car was not too bad but the main issue today was to make the tires work, the challenge was to switch them on for one lap. With more laps it seems to get better and better, but to make a lap time was not easy. I don't know what was the issue at the end of the session, for sure something happened, the car stopped but we still don't know why. Once we'll get the car back we'll be able to understand. In the evening we'll have to go through what we have done today and see what we can improve for tomorrow."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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