Silverstone, Friday 31 July

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, and Racing Director Andrea Stella after Free Practice for the British Grand Prix.

CARLOS SAINZ, #55

	FP1	1m28.988s (+1.566s)	24 laps	12th
	FP2	1m27.820s (+0.546s)	35 laps	6th

“It’s been an intense Friday, testing the new upgrades and having to adapt to the track conditions. The wind picked up and the temperature rose quite a lot from FP1 to FP2, meaning the track was trickier for the tyres and made the car more challenging to drive. I would say it’s been a positive first day, making improvements from FP1 to FP2, but the feeling with the car is not quite there yet. Our lap-time looks competitive, but some cars were caught out by the red flag, so we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see where we really are. Looking forward to it!”

LANDO NORRIS, #4

	FP1	1m28.990s (+1.568s)	22 laps	13th
	FP2	1m28.169s (+0.895s)	26 laps	11th

“We had a decent day in terms of getting through most of the run plan. FP2 was the only difficulty. A small setback towards the end meant I could only do two or three laps at my high-fuel pace, which is a bit frustrating. Apart from that, we worked through the upgrades and some of the changes on the car for this weekend to get a better understanding of what we have. All in all, it was a difficult day with the wind affecting the car a lot. It made things tricky – but apart from that it was positive in terms of getting through what we needed to get through.”

ANDREA STELLA, Racing Director

“We had a busy programme for this Friday, which opens the double-header at Silverstone, with some aerodynamic upgrades to validate. Happily, the circuit stayed dry and, barring some minor bodywork damage, we didn’t see any major problems and could complete the programme we’d planned. We could see the new parts are working, and I want to thank the whole team for the effort that went into designing and manufacturing those parts. It’s a constant effort to improve the car, which is very important because the midfield is clearly very tight.  

“The track was tricky today with a blustery wind and, like everyone else, it was tough to extract the maximum out of the car given the conditions. We expect the remainder of the weekend to be a little cooler; we have to be prepared to deal with all conditions and hopefully once again be able to compete for a place in Q3, to give ourselves the best chance of scoring good points on Sunday.”

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