Friday: Saubers far off the pace

Sergio Pérez – 14th and 16th

« More than anything, I am happy to be back in the car. Everything went well, I feel good, and I worked hard over the last few weeks to get here. I regained speed fairly quickly, which is good. Overall, it seems like we are not really in the rhythm here. We have a lot of work to do tonight to improve the car. Regarding the tires, I found the mediums difficult to get up to temperature. The lack of grip is a general problem here. It’s very dusty and even with the soft tires, it’s difficult to find a good level of grip. We will check several things and I hope we will have a good qualifying session ».

Kamui Kobayashi – 17th and 17th

« For me, the day was difficult. This morning, I had a problem with the accelerator pedal and couldn’t complete the scheduled program. For the second free practice session in the afternoon, the car was a little better, and I thought I could achieve a good time. But unfortunately, after fitting new soft tires, I flat-spotted the front right. The long stints in this session were good. I think we will be better tomorrow than we were today ».

James Key

This morning, we ran with just one set of tires for each car in slippery track conditions. It was mainly a session of mechanical and aerodynamic testing. Unfortunately, Kamui had a throttle problem with his car, which cost him time on the track. This afternoon, we carried out our usual program of tire comparison and setup work. In the end, we conducted long runs to understand tire wear. We have a bit of work to do to improve in the second sector. However, neither of the drivers was able to put together their best sectors, so our lap times today are not fully representative of our performance.