2020 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Free Practice "A positive final Friday of the year"
Yas Marina Circuit, Friday 11 December
Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris and Racing Director Andrea Stella after Friday in Abu Dhabi.
CARLOS SAINZ, #55
| FP1 | 1m39.330s (+1.952s) | 27 laps | 11th |
| FP2 | 1m37.616s (+1.340s) | 31 laps | 12th |
“It’s been a bit of a better start than last weekend. The car immediately felt more in the window. Unfortunately, every time we put the Soft tyre on today we didn't have the cleanest of laps due to traffic, or we simply didn't nail the set-up, so still a lot of homework to do regarding that tyre and how can we extract a bit more from it. The Soft compound is obviously going to be the qualifying tyre and looking at the standings today, with seven drivers in just two tenths, it's crucial to find some lap-time on that compound. Time to analyse and get ready for tomorrow.”
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Yas Marina Circuit
LANDO NORRIS, #4
| FP1 | 1m39.352s (+1.974s) | 28 laps | 13th |
| FP2 | 1m37.438s (+1.162s) | 29 laps | 5th |
“A positive final Friday of the year. We made some good improvements, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do overnight. I think we can be happy with what we did, but we saw how close it was, so if we don’t maximise everything tomorrow we can easily be a long way off where we want to be. So, heads down tonight to try to get that little bit more out of the car and we’ll go again tomorrow.”
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ANDREA STELLA, Racing Director
“Overall, it’s been a positive Friday in Abu Dhabi. This afternoon, we worked on aerodynamic items, with an eye on next year. This evening we had another opportunity to evaluate the 2021 tyres, as well as quite a bit of work to do understanding the tyres for this weekend. We have the C5 here – which is always an interesting compound to understand. Compared to FP1, we made some progress in FP2 and, overall, the car seems to have potential, even if it’s not easy to extract it all, but there are still plenty of opportunities for improvement. We’ll analyse the data overnight and make sure we’re ready for our final qualifying and race of the season.”
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Race preview for the 2020 Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Hear from Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, and Andreas Seidl.
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