Friday: Liuzzi and Ricciardo in trouble with their HRT

Vitantonio Liuzzi – 20th and 23rd

It was nice to be back in the car; I missed that feeling over the past two weeks, so I was really looking forward to getting back behind the wheel as soon as possible. This morning’s session went well, and we were able to complete our testing program. The track had little grip, so we were sliding a lot, but the balance of the car wasn’t too bad, and we were able to gather a lot of interesting data. This afternoon, we couldn’t finish our testing program due to electronic issues that kept us in the pits for a long time, which is unfortunate. The car wasn’t as good as it was this morning, so we’ll have to work to understand why. The track temperature was lower this afternoon, and as the sun was setting, the car was more difficult to drive, so we need to see if this is happening to everyone or if it’s an issue specific to us.

Daniel Ricciardo – 21st and 24th

I was not particularly happy with my first practice session this morning because we started quite far off in terms of setup and compared to what we usually have. We made some changes for this afternoon, but we didn’t make the expected progress, so we will have to do better tomorrow. We need to work tonight and make changes, crossing our fingers that it works tomorrow. I remain positive and think we can still extract performance from the car. Hopefully, we can start improving tomorrow from Free Practice 3 to approach the qualifying session with confidence.