7 March 2023 16:01 (UTC)
"Tyre choice will play a big part for the rest of the weekend"
Silverstone, Friday 7 August
Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, and Racing Director Andrea Stella after Free Practice for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
FP1 | 1m28.138s (+1.972s) | 28 laps | 14th | |
FP2 | 1m26.918s (+1.312s) | 24 laps | 9th |
“A bit of a different Friday, choosing to run only Soft tyres through the whole day. All cars seem to struggle with degradation, so it was important to gather as much information as possible to learn on that side. Tyre choice will play a big part for the rest of the weekend, so we needed as much data as possible in order to take better decisions.
“Generally, the feeling with the car in FP2 was quite decent. We need to double-check the speed on the straights, as usual in Silverstone, but in general the feeling was fine today.”
FP1 | 1m27.846s (+1.680s) | 26 laps | 12th | |
FP2 | 1m26.867s (+1.261s) | 26 laps | 8th |
“A tricky day, not as straightforward as last weekend. Trying to understand these tyres was a bit more difficult as they are quite soft. Obviously, everyone out there lapped pretty well on new tyres, but they degrade a lot in the high-fuel long runs. So, we’re struggling with getting them to last, but at the same time I think we got a good understanding of the balance. Like last week, I think conditions are going to change quite a lot come tomorrow, so we’ll wait to see what happens.”
“For the second week in a row, we had good conditions at Silverstone for Friday practice, and this allowed us to work uninterrupted on our objectives. This weekend, those were to find some incremental gains in our performance, and also to develop a better understanding of these tyres.
“Tyres, obviously, are a key topic this weekend – not just because of the failures during the British Grand Prix, but also because the allocation is a step softer, which is obviously quite extreme at a demanding track like this one. Our sessions went well, we have gathered good data and we’ll analyse this overnight to give us the best of chance making Q3 and scoring good points in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix on Sunday.”
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