Stroll ahead of teammate Perez in first 2 practices for Spanish GP
AFTER AN OFF-TRACK EXCURSION IN FP1, STROLL ENDED FP2 IN 13TH PLACE
The same result at the top of the time sheets for both practice sessions with Valteri Bottas clocking the fastest time with 1:17.951(FP1) and 1:17.284(FP2).
In FP1, it was Vettel in 2nd, Leclerc 3rd and Hamilton 4th. In FP2, Hamilton leaped ahed pf both Ferrari to finish 0.049s behind Bottas. Leclerc was 3rd and Vettel 4th.
Lance Stroll had, to his feeling, a much better start to the weekend than at previous race. The team arrived in Barcelona with some upgrade to the car and it seems to have been a positive result, at least for Stroll.
“I feel that we have made some progress today. The car is feeling better than it has at the previous races so that’s a positive. Unfortunately I put a wheel on the grass in the morning session at the entry of turn nine. We missed a bit of running in the afternoon as a result, but the team did a great job to get the car repaired and we still got our programme done. We have some parts being delivered tonight so we should be in good shape for the rest of the weekend. My feelings on the updates were generally positive, but let’s wait and see what the data says.”
By finishing in 13th place in both session with 1:19.855(FP1) and 1:18.839(FP2), Lance placed ahead of teammate Perez(1:20.459; 1:19.448) who had a more difficult time finding the right balance for his car.
“It was quite a tricky day and difficult to know how we will perform for the rest of the weekend. We completed lots of laps and collected the data, but we are not yet happy with the performance so we need to understand where we can unlock more potential tonight. We were a bit up and down today – at times we seemed more competitive and then at other times we seemed further away. So the work we will do over the coming hours – looking through the data – will be really important to get us in better shape for qualifying. It’s early days to give a definite decision on the new parts we tried today and we need more time to really understand them.”
One more practice session tomorrow morning followed by qualifying in early afternoon local time. Be sure to watch TSN or RDS for a live coverage.
Image: Racing Point F1