(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)
Mercedes ended today's running in Hockenheim as the team to beat as Lewis Hamilton topped the second practice session ahead of Sunday's German Grand Prix. The 2008 world champion set a benchmark time of 1m 18.341s to finish 0.024s ahead of team mate Nico Rosberg. It wasn't all plain sailing for Mercedes however as Rosberg got stuck behind Hamilton at the Mercedes garage and as a result his brakes behan to overheat.
Following the session Hamilton said:
'It was a pretty good day today. It was quite difficult to find the balance with the track being so hot and it is a tricky circuit to drive in general. The car is a bit different know as everyone made some set-up changes in a different direction to what we've had in the past, but it's still fun to drive. As the temperatures were so high, it was difficult for the tyres and we're going to need to manage that carefully when we get to the race. The weather is beautiful and the heat was a challenge, particularly in the car, but that's how I like it. We need to analyse as much as we can tonight and drink plenty as it's going to be hot.'
Championship leader Nico Rosberg, who finished this mornings session top and the afternoon session in second place commented:
'It was a difficult day for us, because we had to work on some of the new settings as the car was running without the FRIC system. But it worked out quite well even in difficult conditions. It was very hot outside and the soft tyres did last that long here, so this will be tricky for the race. We had a bit of a situation in the pit-lane when my team mate came in suddenly just before I was called in too. But the boys reacted quickly and cooled my car and brought his tyres out. It's great to be back in Germany. I really hope for a big German support this weekend here. We will aim to put on a great show for them.'
Following the session Hamilton said:
'It was a pretty good day today. It was quite difficult to find the balance with the track being so hot and it is a tricky circuit to drive in general. The car is a bit different know as everyone made some set-up changes in a different direction to what we've had in the past, but it's still fun to drive. As the temperatures were so high, it was difficult for the tyres and we're going to need to manage that carefully when we get to the race. The weather is beautiful and the heat was a challenge, particularly in the car, but that's how I like it. We need to analyse as much as we can tonight and drink plenty as it's going to be hot.'
Championship leader Nico Rosberg, who finished this mornings session top and the afternoon session in second place commented:
'It was a difficult day for us, because we had to work on some of the new settings as the car was running without the FRIC system. But it worked out quite well even in difficult conditions. It was very hot outside and the soft tyres did last that long here, so this will be tricky for the race. We had a bit of a situation in the pit-lane when my team mate came in suddenly just before I was called in too. But the boys reacted quickly and cooled my car and brought his tyres out. It's great to be back in Germany. I really hope for a big German support this weekend here. We will aim to put on a great show for them.'
Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo had another good session as he finished in third place showing that the team have certainly made a step forward ahead of the race on Sunday. The Australian finished the session best of the rest behind the Mercedes duo in third place. He commented:
'I think tyres and weather will define the race on Sunday. Today we were happy with our progress and it seems to be one of the closer gaps for a while, but it’s tomorrow when we'll see how close we really are. I think we had a good car today and we extracted pretty much everything we could out of the practice today. Hopefully we can have more of a fight with the leaders this weekend.'
'I think tyres and weather will define the race on Sunday. Today we were happy with our progress and it seems to be one of the closer gaps for a while, but it’s tomorrow when we'll see how close we really are. I think we had a good car today and we extracted pretty much everything we could out of the practice today. Hopefully we can have more of a fight with the leaders this weekend.'
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen put his water pump problem from this morning behind him by setting the fourth fastest time for the Italian team finishing the session just ahead of McLaren's Kevin Magnussen who showed that the improvements that the team have made to the MP4-29 for this weekend are working the Dane finished the session just ahead of Williams Martini Racing's Felipe Massa who finished the session in 6th place.
Speaking after the session the Dane said:
'The temperatures are very high, so the biggest challenge for us is to make the tyres work – it’s going to be tricky to understand, especially if the weather changes for Sunday, when it could be a bit cooler. But it’s the same for everyone.
Speaking after the session the Dane said:
'The temperatures are very high, so the biggest challenge for us is to make the tyres work – it’s going to be tricky to understand, especially if the weather changes for Sunday, when it could be a bit cooler. But it’s the same for everyone.
“I can’t really explain the relatively close gap to the cars at the front, but everybody is running different programmes on different fuel-loads. The new rear wing that I tested today feels good; it doesn’t upset the car, so, hopefully, we can carry it forward.
“Without FRIC, our car still feels really good – which is a positive – I don’t know about any of the other drivers, but I think we’re pretty happy with the car at the moment.
“Still, we need to stay focused: it’s only practice, so it’s difficult to assess the pace of the other teams, but we’ve hopefully made a little bit of a step.”
Jenson Button was 7th in the second McLaren and said:
'Looking at the timesheets, you’d say we look quite good, but we’re finding it a little bit tougher over the long-runs. I think we’re overheating the tyres under traction. It’s so difficult to manage the tyres in these temperatures, and it’s especially hard to get the Supersoft tyre working correctly without overheating it.
The 2009 champion finished the session just ahead of reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel who was in 8th place. The reigning world champion said:
'I think we can improve from there for tomorrow. I don’t think not having the FRIC suspension on the car made too much difference to us today, although I haven’t had a proper look at the other cars yet. I think it will be fairly close between the cars this weekend. It’s nice to be on track here near to where I grew up and I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend.'
'Looking at the timesheets, you’d say we look quite good, but we’re finding it a little bit tougher over the long-runs. I think we’re overheating the tyres under traction. It’s so difficult to manage the tyres in these temperatures, and it’s especially hard to get the Supersoft tyre working correctly without overheating it.
“We were able to test lots of interesting things today – and, for me, there’s more to come tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll also have the new rear wing fitted to my car. Sometimes, it’s difficult to know what the advantage it gives, especially when you only get a few laps on Saturday morning to try it, but it’ll be interesting to give it a go.
“The car didn’t feel any different without our FRIC system – it wouldn’t really make a massive difference around here anyway.
“As ever, we’ll just make the best out of what we’ve got – and I think we can push a bit harder tomorrow.'
The 2009 champion finished the session just ahead of reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel who was in 8th place. The reigning world champion said:
'I think we can improve from there for tomorrow. I don’t think not having the FRIC suspension on the car made too much difference to us today, although I haven’t had a proper look at the other cars yet. I think it will be fairly close between the cars this weekend. It’s nice to be on track here near to where I grew up and I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend.'
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso had a disappointing session as the Spaniard finished the day in 9th place 0.988s behind pace setter Lewis Hamilton. After sitting out this morning's session to allow Susie Wolff to run the car Williams Martini Racing's Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top ten 1.044s behind Hamilton.
It was another impressive session for the Sauber F1 Team as Adrian Sutil set the 11th fastest time of the day showing that the Swiss based outfit appear to have made a step forward. The German finished the session just ahead of the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat. Speaking afterwards the German said:
'It was a difficult day. Because of the high temperatures it was not easy to find a good set-up. However, this was the same situation for everyone. Due to the extremely high track temperatures, it was tough to manage the tyres. Besides that, I also had a lot of understeer. I think it is positive that we are close to the top ten. The objective for tomorrow is to keep up today’s performance.'
Giedo Van Der Garde who drove in Free Practice one said:
'It was a good session. I was able to run through our programme this morning. I was doing some set-up work. We tried a few things, some of them were positive and some did not work. Now we are going to analyse the data. I think the team was happy with my feedback and the direction we are going in. All in all, I was not focusing on fast laps, rather on consistent running, working on tyre management and doing set-up work.'
Sauber Head of Track Engineering, Giampaolo Dall'Ara commented:
'The day went according to plan, and we were able to complete our planned programme with Adrian, Esteban and Giedo. The morning was quite good in terms of making progress with the car’s set-up and the preparation for the weekend. In the afternoon Esteban needed a little bit of time to find the rhythm after sitting out FP1. Due to the high temperatures, it was very difficult to manage the tyres correctly. With the low fuel performance we can be pretty satisfied. On the long runs we are not yet where we want to be, so we will look into that this evening. However, overall it was a good start to the weekend.'
'It was a difficult day. Because of the high temperatures it was not easy to find a good set-up. However, this was the same situation for everyone. Due to the extremely high track temperatures, it was tough to manage the tyres. Besides that, I also had a lot of understeer. I think it is positive that we are close to the top ten. The objective for tomorrow is to keep up today’s performance.'
Giedo Van Der Garde who drove in Free Practice one said:
'It was a good session. I was able to run through our programme this morning. I was doing some set-up work. We tried a few things, some of them were positive and some did not work. Now we are going to analyse the data. I think the team was happy with my feedback and the direction we are going in. All in all, I was not focusing on fast laps, rather on consistent running, working on tyre management and doing set-up work.'
Sauber Head of Track Engineering, Giampaolo Dall'Ara commented:
'The day went according to plan, and we were able to complete our planned programme with Adrian, Esteban and Giedo. The morning was quite good in terms of making progress with the car’s set-up and the preparation for the weekend. In the afternoon Esteban needed a little bit of time to find the rhythm after sitting out FP1. Due to the high temperatures, it was very difficult to manage the tyres correctly. With the low fuel performance we can be pretty satisfied. On the long runs we are not yet where we want to be, so we will look into that this evening. However, overall it was a good start to the weekend.'
The Sahara Force India duo of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg finished the session in 13th and 14th place respectively. Speaking following today's running Hulkenberg said:
'It was not the smoothest day, but from the team’s perspective everyone is happy that we managed to get the main jobs done. It’s hard to really know our absolute pace because my short run on the super-soft tyre was compromised by a couple of yellow flags. So I feel there is more performance and lap-time available with a clean lap. I also think we can still find a bit of pace overnight with some balance changes.'
Sergio Perez commented:
'I’m feeling pretty happy about today because we finished the programme and we learned a lot. The car performed well in the afternoon, especially for the long runs, so I’m really looking forward to Sunday. We also worked hard on the qualifying pace, but I think wherever we qualify we can move forward and be in the fight for points.'
Sahara Force India deputy team principal Robert Fernley said:
'Today we saw the hottest track conditions of the year with a peak of 55 degrees this afternoon. Despite the heat, both tyre compounds performed well and we collected a lot of important data. The hot weather also makes car cooling even more of a challenge and so determining our cooling levels for the weekend was one of the main tasks of the day. Performance-wise I think we can feel reasonably satisfied with the outcome of the two sessions. The long-run pace appears to be competitive, more so than in previous races, and the drivers spoke positively about the long-run balance. Tonight will be a case of ironing out the final issues and trying to optimise our one lap pace with the aim of qualifying well tomorrow.'
'It was not the smoothest day, but from the team’s perspective everyone is happy that we managed to get the main jobs done. It’s hard to really know our absolute pace because my short run on the super-soft tyre was compromised by a couple of yellow flags. So I feel there is more performance and lap-time available with a clean lap. I also think we can still find a bit of pace overnight with some balance changes.'
Sergio Perez commented:
'I’m feeling pretty happy about today because we finished the programme and we learned a lot. The car performed well in the afternoon, especially for the long runs, so I’m really looking forward to Sunday. We also worked hard on the qualifying pace, but I think wherever we qualify we can move forward and be in the fight for points.'
Sahara Force India deputy team principal Robert Fernley said:
'Today we saw the hottest track conditions of the year with a peak of 55 degrees this afternoon. Despite the heat, both tyre compounds performed well and we collected a lot of important data. The hot weather also makes car cooling even more of a challenge and so determining our cooling levels for the weekend was one of the main tasks of the day. Performance-wise I think we can feel reasonably satisfied with the outcome of the two sessions. The long-run pace appears to be competitive, more so than in previous races, and the drivers spoke positively about the long-run balance. Tonight will be a case of ironing out the final issues and trying to optimise our one lap pace with the aim of qualifying well tomorrow.'
Jean Eric Vergne ended the session in 15th place just ahead of the Lotus duo of Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean. After sitting out the first session this morning, the Sauber F1 Team's Esteban Gutierrez ended the session in 18th place just ahead of the Marussia F1 Team's Jules Bianchi. Marcus Ericsson ended the session in 20th place just ahead Max Chilton in the second Marussia.
Speaking after the session, Gutierrez said:
'In the afternoon I was trying to catch up on the programme as I missed FP1. I mainly focused on getting a feeling for the car. We are experimenting and trying different things and the two cars have different set-ups. During my last stint I improved quite a lot. Now, we are going to analyse the data and decide in which direction we should go tomorrow.'
It was a disappointing session for Kamui Kobayashi as the Japanese driver suffered a fire on-board his CT05 bringing his session to an early end.
So what have learnt from today's running?
- Mercedes continue to lead
- The gap between Red Bull, Ferrari and Williams has closed dramatically
- Susie Wolff was extremely impressive during her run in Free Practice this morning
- Sauber appear to have made a step forward.
© Ben Johnston 2014
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