(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)
Mercedes championship leader Lewis Hamilton lead the way i this morning's Free Practice 2 session ahead of Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix. The 2008 world champion finished the session with a time of 1m 35.078s edging out Nico Rosberg by just 0.240s. Hamilton, who completed his run on a set of brand new Medium compound tyre's commented:
'The gap changes from track to track between us and other cars but it looks pretty good so far this weekend. To come here at one of the most demanding tracks for downforce and to be that competitive is fantastic.
It’s amazing what this team has done. The pace looks good but it’s a track that’s very hard on tyres, especially the rears; one minute you have the one lap pace and one minute you have the long run pace, so it’s a very fine line. Qualifying is going to be very important as it’s quite difficult to overtake here. We don’t know what’s going to happen with the weather this weekend; it’s such a challenging circuit but we always come to the weekend prepared for everything. I just want to race.'
Nico Rosberg commented on his day saying:
'That was a very, very good day for us. Thank you to the team for this great car, we are very quick on one lap and also on high fuel levels. My long run was very good this afternoon, so I’m quite confident for a good race here.
There is still a lot of work to do tonight to find the perfect balance for this great old school track. It was a real pleasure to drive this fantastic track here today. Also the atmosphere is great, lots of fans are here already and they are very enthusiastic.'
Mercedes Motorsport boss Toto Wolff commented by saying:
'We ran a standard Friday programme today, although the warm, dry conditions were obviously very different to what is currently forecast for Sunday. However, today’s runs showed that we can be satisfied with our pace on one lap and the longer runs.
So far, we’re on track – but we will continue to work hard to further improve and make sure we are prepared for all possible conditions. Finally, I’d like to say a word for the Japanese fans: Suzuka is one of the temples for our sport and it’s fantastic to see the welcome they give us every year. I hope we can now deliver a race on Sunday that will reward their passion for Formula One.'
Mercedes Executive Technical Director Paddy Lowe stated:
'Suzuka is a fantastic circuit and a big challenge for both the drivers and the engineers, so it was great to get down to work today and start adjusting the car to the circuit’s characteristics. We saw plenty of incidents, which reflects the demanding nature of the track, and we were learning our way with the tyres to begin with.
We ran our standard programme, using the prime in P1 and then both tyre types in the second session, but the car balance still needs tuning as both drivers are suffering with some understeer. We also lost some time with red flags in the second session, which meant the afternoon was a little slow to get going.
All credit to the mechanics, who had a busy programme after we took both engines out in the garage between the two sessions and managed to get out in the afternoon on time. The weather forecast still suggests tomorrow will be dry but there is obviously some uncertainty for Sunday, depending on how the typhoon turns in the coming hours. We will monitor this closely as the weekend develops.
Williams Martini Racing's Valtteri Bottas did a great job for the Grove based outfit and ended the session in third place finishing the session just 1.201s behind Lewis Hamilton. Speaking following th session the Finn commented by saying:
'From the first lap the car balance was good so we have made a good step forward. The upgrades we have brought have worked well, which is positive to see. It will be interesting to see where we are tomorrow when people start to squeeze a little more from their cars.
Although the Mercedes still look strong, there will be a good fight between us, the Ferraris and the Red Bulls.'
McLaren's Jenson Button made it four Mercedes powered cars in the top four as he set a time that was just 1.331s behind former McLaren team mate Lewis Hamilton. Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel was fifth fastest for Infiniti Red Bull Racing and speaking after the session the German said:
'I think we can definitely do better than fifth, but we may hit the limit when we get to third! Mercedes seem to be very quick around here but I think we can improve, especially on a short run. It would be nice to fight the Mercedes in the race, who knows if it rains, but otherwise we will be against Williams, McLaren, who seem stronger here, and Ferrari.'
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen did a great job to finish in sixth place just ahead of team mate Fernando Alonso. The Finn has stated that he is far happier with the set up of the F14-T and is hopeful that the team can deliver some good results this weekend provided that they have a trouble free weekend.
McLaren's Kevin Magnussen was eighth fastest finishing the session just ahead of Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat. Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo finished the session in 10th place despite crashing his RB10 just prior to the end of the session. Speaking following today's running the Australian commented:
'I made a mistake in FP2. I did a quick lap and then I was trying to get a good exit to start the next one. We were trying to cool the tyres and there was a yellow flag so I was trying to go slow enough to miss it at the start of the lap, but I think the tyres cooled too much and I was too hard on the throttle for the situation and lost the car. It’s of course not what I wanted in the first ten minutes of the second session, but I’ll learn from it.
It’s not ideal as we missed running this afternoon, but Sebastian did a full session so we will be able to see his data. The Mercs were really quick today, we think we’re there but then they pull a gap. I think we should be able to be third on the grid.'
After giving way to Max Verstappen this morning Jean Eric Vergne was back in the Toro Rosso and finished the session in eleventh place. Sahara Force India's Nico Hulkenberg finished this afternoon's session in 12th place and speaking afterwards the German commented:
'Today's practice sessions went quite well from our perspective, even though in FP2 there were a lot of yellow and red flags that brought a few interruptions.
We have a clear idea of what we need to concentrate on to find a bit more speed overnight and hopefully some changes in the set-up will improve the balance of the car ahead of tomorrow's qualifying session.
I am not overly worried about the rain that is expected later in the weekend; we just have to wait and see, especially for Sunday. In the end, we are all in the same boat when it comes to the weather and we will need to react to what the situation is.'
The Lotus F1 Team's Romain Grosjean finished the session in 13th place and speaking after the session the Frenchman stated:
'The E22 feels quite good here and it’s always fantastic to be driving a Formula 1 car at Suzuka. We spent a bit of time in the morning getting the brake feel right, but the afternoon was pretty straight-forward.
It’s going to be very interesting to see what the weather does over the weekend as there’s been a lot of speculation about this. We were within shooting distance of the top ten today which is always a positive with our generally better race pace. Let’s see what happens in qualifying and what challenges the weather present.'
Williams Martini Racing Team's Felipe Massa finished the session in 14th place after which he stated:
'The car looks very competitive as Valtteri was close to the top. I had some issues today and just couldn’t get any grip; it has nothing to do with the new aero parts as those seem to have worked well. Once we can fix the issues, I think we can be competitive tomorrow.
Today’s work was aimed at qualifying performance, as the race looks like it will be wet, so that is another consideration we must take when setting up the car. Our race pace looks strong from what Valtteri has shown, so we will work hard to get my car working the same tomorrow.'
Sahara Force India's Sergio Perez finished the afternoon session in 15th place, speaking after today's session which saw him finish 2.708s behind Hamilton, the Mexican stated:
'It was quite a difficult day because we lost a lot of track time this afternoon. It meant we could only do a short run on each tyre compound and I missed out on the high fuel running.
Of course, if it rains on Sunday, missing out on this running won’t really matter, but we have to see what happens with the weather. My initial feeling was good on the hard tyre but we still need to work out the right compromise to get the most from the medium tyre.'
The Lotus F1 Team's Pastor Maldonado finished the session in 16th place and commented afterwards by saying:
'I’m happy with today. There were no issues with the car and the only problem I had was a vibration from my hard tyres in the second session. Suzuka is a great circuit and I think we have quite good potential here.
There’s some more pace to come and our car has looked quite reasonable. I will have a bigger challenge in the race as there will be a ten-place grid penalty as we’re now on to our sixth engine, but if we can race reliably then a good result is still possible.
Adrian Sutil was 17th fastest for the Sauber F1 Team and speaking afterwards the German commented by saying:
'In FP1 we had problems finding a good balance for the car. The hard tyres didn’t work as we had hoped. There was very little grip, which makes it difficult to set a decent lap time.
For FP2 we made some changes to the set-up of the car, which improved the situation with the hard tyres, but then I struggeled with the medium compound. Overall the balance of the car is just not satisfactory. Our main problems are coming from the power unit, which is disappointing. Unfortunately I don’t see how we can change that for tomorrow.”
Esteban Gutierrez was 18th fastest in the second session. Speaking following the session he said:
'“Unfortunately, I lost the car in the second practice session in turn 13. With the speed you get there it was difficult to avoid an impact. I am really sorry for the team, and I am sure we will recover for qualifying. In the first practice session we were struggling with the set-up of the car. I think we found a good compromise in the second session, and we will analyse the collected data to get everything ready for tomorrow.'
Following Friday's running, Giampaolo Dall'Ara Head of track side engineering at the Sauber F1 Team commented by saying:
'That was not a good day for us. In the morning we had issues with the set-up of the car. We tried to work it out, but we are not quite happy from where we stand at the moment.
We struggled to get the hard tyres to work, which has been a problem every time we allocated the hard compounds, and we were expecting to be in a better position here on this track. What was also disappointing was the fact that the improvement on the medium tyres was not as much as we expected. So there is a lot of work to do.
Unfortunately, Esteban lost the car in turn 13. On the data we could not see anything wrong with the car, but we still have to analyse what happened. We also had issues again with the power unit on Adrian’s car. He had to come into the pits during the first high fuel run in the second free practice because he lost power. We were able to fix the problem by taking oil out.'
Marcus Ericsson was 19th fastest for the Caterham F1 Team finishing the session just ahead of the Marussia duo of Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton while Kamui Kobayashi rounded out the time sheets following after crashing during the second session.
© Ben Johnston 2014
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