The first day of practice in Spain was quite straight forward. Every car on the track was fitted with brand new upgrades to make it faster, but did they work?
This years practice pace has been very rapid compared to last year. Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas was nearly a second quicker in this years FP2 than last year.
Another front runner today was the Haas F1 Team, which showed potential to be just behind the two top teams in both free practice sessions with both cars.
The degree of degradation on the tyres is according Pirelli as expected; especially on the soft tyre. There also appears to be a tactical difference already: while the soft tyres were used by everyone, there was a roughly 50-50 split of teams running the medium and the hard tyres in FP2. This might mean that different teams are considering varied strategic approaches, assessing long run performances on the hard and medium as well.
Barcelona is renowned for being a high-energy track, but Pirelli said that the tyre behaviour and performance remained in line with expectations. Track temperatures were quite warm today, peaking at 47°C: around 15°C warmer than during testing at the end of February.
So far, the performance gaps between the compounds are around 0.8 seconds between medium and soft, and 1.1 seconds between hard and medium.
So how did the drivers experience their this first day of practice with their upgraded car? In order of the FP2 results we summed up the drivers comments after the first day of practice in Barcelona.
Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport
Valtteri Bottas
"It’s always an interesting day when you’re bringing new parts to the car to get a feel for it and see if they bring the performance they should.
The car felt really good today, completely different to how it was in winter testing, and it seems like our cornering performance has improved. The balance around the lap is also better, so it looks like we’ve taken the right direction since the winter.
Today was good, but it’s only Friday and Ferrari are very close. It feels like we’ve made a good step forward, but we need to wait and see what tomorrow holds."
Lewis Hamilton
"It was quite windy on track today and it was a bit tricky with the grip levels on the three different tyres, but we got through our programme and now have lots of data to analyse tonight and then fine tune the car for tomorrow.
Everyone worked really hard to bring the new package here and a huge amount of effort has gone into it. It seems like it’s working, but it’s hard to feel it because this track is so different to the streets of Baku. We’ve got work to do with the balance, but it’s been positive for us to be out there."
Scuderia Ferrari
Charles Leclerc
“We focused on understanding our new package today and ran all of the tests we had planned. We have some more work to do to find the right balance, but this is normal when you put a car with new parts on track for the first time and it should be a quick fix.
Overall, the potential is there and we are in good shape. We will push hard to challenge our competitors and have a positive qualifying result tomorrow.”
Sebastian Vettel
“As far as the aerodynamic and engine updates are concerned, I’d say we can be pleased with them, but it’s only Friday and the true order of the teams will be only be seen from tomorrow onwards.
I’d say we are not yet where we’d want to be, especially in the slowest corner and so I think we still have quite a bit of work ahead of us to be ready for qualifying and the race.”
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing
Max Verstappen
“During the two practice sessions we tried to improve the car and understand the new updates, which I think we did. I have a good feeling about the upgrades, which work for sure, and the tyres seem to be working quite well, too.
The long runs were okay and we still need to find a little bit of pace, but we have the whole night to find it. During FP1 we had an oil leak so we had to change the engine ahead of FP2, which put us a little on the back foot.
I think that’s also a little bit of the reason why, in the second practice session, we were not exactly where we wanted to be set-up wise with the balance of the car, but we have enough data to understand and improve it for tomorrow. I enjoy being at this track, and especially this weekend, as we have our new Energy Station which is a great home for our Team.”
Pierre Gasly
“Overall, today felt good and it was a pretty positive day. I think we’ve taken a step forward and the first feeling with the car is good. Of course, as a driver you always want more grip, but I think in terms of balance it was good and so I’m really happy.
It’s only the first day of running so it’s too early to make any conclusions and we need to understand more about this package. It’s clear Mercedes and Ferrari have made a pretty big step, but we ran a lot of tests today, so now we need to analyse everything tonight and try to put everything together for tomorrow.”
Rich Energy Haas F1 Team
Romain Grosjean
“It was good today, I think both our cars behaved really well. We got the tires working, had some pace, so it was much more fun in the car. We’re still evaluating everything with the package, we can probably find a bit more from it. It’s always tricky when you get a new one to find the right set-up around it.
I think the biggest thing today was getting the tires to work, it just wasn’t the same car. I could actually enjoy driving it, I knew what I was going to get. The tires were gripping, they weren’t sliding and going away and destroying themselves. It was a big difference. It’s a bit of a shame we’ve got to put in so much effort for a piece of rubber, but clearly it shows where we need to improve.
We need to do more, especially for Monaco and Canada, but coming back here and being able to enjoy two good sessions, it shows that the problem has not been our chassis, it’s related to tire usage. It’s been a positive day, I’ve enjoyed driving the car. I’m sure there’s going to be more to come from it.”
Kevin Magnussen
“They were good practice sessions. The car felt good – but it’s not like the car hasn’t felt good in other practice sessions this year. We’re still cautious in our expectations I guess.
Our long runs seemed better than in previous races, so I guess there’s reason to be slightly more positive. We’ve just got to keep working. We need to try and understand why it’s better today, to see what we can learn and take with us for the future. Romain (Grosjean) ran the upgrades today, and I ran what we’ve been using all season – so we could have a direct comparison and get the data in the same conditions at the same time.
I think that was all positive, there’s stuff to fine tune on that. We’re seeing what we expected, so that’s good.”
McLaren F1 Team
Carlos Sainz
“That was a pretty smooth Friday for us, doing a comparison across the upgrades that we’ve brought to this race. I didn’t use the new package in FP1 and then ran it in FP2 to try to feel the reaction of the car.”
“We now need to compare the data to understand the differences, but I felt good in the car this afternoon, even though the track was not in the best condition. I’m sure we can extract the maximum out of our package tomorrow and we’ll fight for the best position in quali.”
Lando Norris
“It’s been a good Friday but not amazing. I could have driven better, especially in FP1, but I think we introduced our small upgrades reasonably well. They worked as intended so we’re happy about that.
“There’s still more pace we need to find, to be as strong as we want to be, but it hasn’t been a bad Friday. It’s been productive, we just need to find that pace. The long run work looked reasonably good. If we can find a bit more pace on lower fuel, I think we could be reasonably happy going into qualifying tomorrow.”
Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda
Daniil Kvyat
“It was a productive Friday. We completed many laps today without any big issues and we were able to gather some useful data, which we will analyse tonight to find the best setup for tomorrow.
I’m positive that we’ll make a step, which is very important in such a tight midfield where every tenth matters.”
Alexander Albon
“Bringing updates means that it might take some time to understand how to make them work in the best possible way, and this is exactly what happened today in FP1.
We analysed all the data before starting today’s second session and FP2 was much more productive – we made a good step. It’s progress but there’s still some more work to do tomorrow. We’re in the ballpark and the pace still looks quite strong.”
Alfa Romeo Racing
Kimi Raikkonen
“That was a difficult day for us, with lots of issues here and there.
At the end of FP2 we understood the car a bit better, but we still have a lot of work to do for tomorrow’s qualifying.”
Antonio Giovinazzi
“It was very nice to finally have a Friday without issues and I hope it is a sign of things to come for the rest of the weekend. I was able to get some good mileage under my belt in both sessions, which was crucial.
Barcelona is a track we know very well but it’s interesting to see how much the cars have progressed since testing and in these temperatures. As always, understanding the tyres was a big part of our programme today and I feel we have a good understanding of how they work.
Hopefully we can progress a bit more tonight and we will be in the battle for Q3 tomorrow.”
SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team
Lance 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.”
Sergio Pérez
“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.”
Renault F1 Team
Nico Hulkenberg
“Today was quite a standard Friday with nothing too special to report. We did the usual mix of short and long runs across both sessions as well as some tyre assessment.
As always around here, we were chasing the balance of the car and we have some work to do in that area. The car didn’t feel perfect today and we have some room for improvement looking ahead to tomorrow’s qualifying.”
Daniel Ricciardo
“There was a lot learned today. I felt the car was pretty good to start the day and better than what we showed on the timesheets.
There is more potential and we have some work to do to identify why we couldn’t demonstrate that pace over one lap. That said, it seemed better on the high-fuel runs.
Tomorrow, we’ll look to extract better qualifying pace."
ROKiT Williams Racing
George Russell
"It is good to return to Barcelona, we have done a lot of laps here, and all our simulator work, so I know the place well. It was a relatively positive Friday,
I think we are slightly closer to the rest of the field compared to what we were expecting. We learnt some good things from what we did test, which has given us a good understanding on what to work on tonight."
Robert Kubica
“The feeling wasn’t too bad in FP1 and we worked through our programme.
The feeling wasn’t so great in FP2, so we now need to understand the reason for this, but it was still ok.
We also had to, for precautionary reasons, stop running for about 30 minutes to change one part so were unable to complete our long run programme.”
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The first day of practice in Spain was quite straight forward. Every car on the track was fitted with brand new upgrades to make it faster, but did they work?
This years practice pace has been very rapid compared to last year. Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas was nearly a second quicker in this years FP2 than last year.
Another front runner today was the Haas F1 Team, which showed potential to be just behind the two top teams in both free practice sessions with both cars.
The degree of degradation on the tyres is according Pirelli as expected; especially on the soft tyre. There also appears to be a tactical difference already: while the soft tyres were used by everyone, there was a roughly 50-50 split of teams running the medium and the hard tyres in FP2. This might mean that different teams are considering varied strategic approaches, assessing long run performances on the hard and medium as well.
Barcelona is renowned for being a high-energy track, but Pirelli said that the tyre behaviour and performance remained in line with expectations. Track temperatures were quite warm today, peaking at 47°C: around 15°C warmer than during testing at the end of February.
So far, the performance gaps between the compounds are around 0.8 seconds between medium and soft, and 1.1 seconds between hard and medium.
So how did the drivers experience their this first day of practice with their upgraded car? In order of the FP2 results we summed up the drivers comments after the first day of practice in Barcelona.
Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport
Valtteri Bottas (P1 in FP2)
Valtteri Bottas
"It’s always an interesting day when you’re bringing new parts to the car to get a feel for it and see if they bring the performance they should.
The car felt really good today, completely different to how it was in winter testing, and it seems like our cornering performance has improved. The balance around the lap is also better, so it looks like we’ve taken the right direction since the winter.
Today was good, but it’s only Friday and Ferrari are very close. It feels like we’ve made a good step forward, but we need to wait and see what tomorrow holds."
Lewis Hamilton (P2 in FP2)
Lewis Hamilton
"It was quite windy on track today and it was a bit tricky with the grip levels on the three different tyres, but we got through our programme and now have lots of data to analyse tonight and then fine tune the car for tomorrow.
Everyone worked really hard to bring the new package here and a huge amount of effort has gone into it. It seems like it’s working, but it’s hard to feel it because this track is so different to the streets of Baku. We’ve got work to do with the balance, but it’s been positive for us to be out there."
Scuderia Ferrari
Charles Leclerc (P3 in FP2)
Charles Leclerc
“We focused on understanding our new package today and ran all of the tests we had planned. We have some more work to do to find the right balance, but this is normal when you put a car with new parts on track for the first time and it should be a quick fix.
Overall, the potential is there and we are in good shape. We will push hard to challenge our competitors and have a positive qualifying result tomorrow.”
Sebastian Vettel (P4 in FP2)
Sebastian Vettel
“As far as the aerodynamic and engine updates are concerned, I’d say we can be pleased with them, but it’s only Friday and the true order of the teams will be only be seen from tomorrow onwards.
I’d say we are not yet where we’d want to be, especially in the slowest corner and so I think we still have quite a bit of work ahead of us to be ready for qualifying and the race.”
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing
Max Verstappen (P5 in FP2)
Max Verstappen
“During the two practice sessions we tried to improve the car and understand the new updates, which I think we did. I have a good feeling about the upgrades, which work for sure, and the tyres seem to be working quite well, too.
The long runs were okay and we still need to find a little bit of pace, but we have the whole night to find it. During FP1 we had an oil leak so we had to change the engine ahead of FP2, which put us a little on the back foot.
I think that’s also a little bit of the reason why, in the second practice session, we were not exactly where we wanted to be set-up wise with the balance of the car, but we have enough data to understand and improve it for tomorrow. I enjoy being at this track, and especially this weekend, as we have our new Energy Station which is a great home for our Team.”
Pierre Gasly (P7 in FP2)
Pierre Gasly
“Overall, today felt good and it was a pretty positive day. I think we’ve taken a step forward and the first feeling with the car is good. Of course, as a driver you always want more grip, but I think in terms of balance it was good and so I’m really happy.
It’s only the first day of running so it’s too early to make any conclusions and we need to understand more about this package. It’s clear Mercedes and Ferrari have made a pretty big step, but we ran a lot of tests today, so now we need to analyse everything tonight and try to put everything together for tomorrow.”
Romain Grosjean (P6 in FP2 )
Romain Grosjean
“It was good today, I think both our cars behaved really well. We got the tires working, had some pace, so it was much more fun in the car. We’re still evaluating everything with the package, we can probably find a bit more from it. It’s always tricky when you get a new one to find the right set-up around it.
I think the biggest thing today was getting the tires to work, it just wasn’t the same car. I could actually enjoy driving it, I knew what I was going to get. The tires were gripping, they weren’t sliding and going away and destroying themselves. It was a big difference. It’s a bit of a shame we’ve got to put in so much effort for a piece of rubber, but clearly it shows where we need to improve.
We need to do more, especially for Monaco and Canada, but coming back here and being able to enjoy two good sessions, it shows that the problem has not been our chassis, it’s related to tire usage. It’s been a positive day, I’ve enjoyed driving the car. I’m sure there’s going to be more to come from it.”
Kevin Magnussen (P8 in FP2)
Kevin Magnussen
“They were good practice sessions. The car felt good – but it’s not like the car hasn’t felt good in other practice sessions this year. We’re still cautious in our expectations I guess.
Our long runs seemed better than in previous races, so I guess there’s reason to be slightly more positive. We’ve just got to keep working. We need to try and understand why it’s better today, to see what we can learn and take with us for the future. Romain (Grosjean) ran the upgrades today, and I ran what we’ve been using all season – so we could have a direct comparison and get the data in the same conditions at the same time.
I think that was all positive, there’s stuff to fine tune on that. We’re seeing what we expected, so that’s good.”
McLaren F1 Team
Carlos Sainz (P9 in FP2)
Carlos Sainz
“That was a pretty smooth Friday for us, doing a comparison across the upgrades that we’ve brought to this race. I didn’t use the new package in FP1 and then ran it in FP2 to try to feel the reaction of the car.”
“We now need to compare the data to understand the differences, but I felt good in the car this afternoon, even though the track was not in the best condition. I’m sure we can extract the maximum out of our package tomorrow and we’ll fight for the best position in quali.”
Lando Norris (P16 in FP2)
Lando Norris
“It’s been a good Friday but not amazing. I could have driven better, especially in FP1, but I think we introduced our small upgrades reasonably well. They worked as intended so we’re happy about that.
“There’s still more pace we need to find, to be as strong as we want to be, but it hasn’t been a bad Friday. It’s been productive, we just need to find that pace. The long run work looked reasonably good. If we can find a bit more pace on lower fuel, I think we could be reasonably happy going into qualifying tomorrow.”
Daniil Kvyat (P10 in FP2)
Daniil Kvyat
“It was a productive Friday. We completed many laps today without any big issues and we were able to gather some useful data, which we will analyse tonight to find the best setup for tomorrow.
I’m positive that we’ll make a step, which is very important in such a tight midfield where every tenth matters.”
Alexander Albon (P12 in FP2)
Alexander Albon
“Bringing updates means that it might take some time to understand how to make them work in the best possible way, and this is exactly what happened today in FP1.
We analysed all the data before starting today’s second session and FP2 was much more productive – we made a good step. It’s progress but there’s still some more work to do tomorrow. We’re in the ballpark and the pace still looks quite strong.”
Kimi Räikkönen (P11 in FP2)
Kimi Raikkonen
“That was a difficult day for us, with lots of issues here and there.
At the end of FP2 we understood the car a bit better, but we still have a lot of work to do for tomorrow’s qualifying.”
Antonio Giovinazzi (P17 in FP2)
Antonio Giovinazzi
“It was very nice to finally have a Friday without issues and I hope it is a sign of things to come for the rest of the weekend. I was able to get some good mileage under my belt in both sessions, which was crucial.
Barcelona is a track we know very well but it’s interesting to see how much the cars have progressed since testing and in these temperatures. As always, understanding the tyres was a big part of our programme today and I feel we have a good understanding of how they work.
Hopefully we can progress a bit more tonight and we will be in the battle for Q3 tomorrow.”
SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team
Lance Stroll (P13 in FP2)
Lance 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.”
Sergio Pérez (P18 in FP2)
Sergio Pérez
“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.”
Renault F1 Team
Nico Hulkenberg (P14 in FP2)
Nico Hulkenberg
“Today was quite a standard Friday with nothing too special to report. We did the usual mix of short and long runs across both sessions as well as some tyre assessment.
As always around here, we were chasing the balance of the car and we have some work to do in that area. The car didn’t feel perfect today and we have some room for improvement looking ahead to tomorrow’s qualifying.”
Daniel Ricciardo (P15 in FP2)
Daniel Ricciardo
“There was a lot learned today. I felt the car was pretty good to start the day and better than what we showed on the timesheets.
There is more potential and we have some work to do to identify why we couldn’t demonstrate that pace over one lap. That said, it seemed better on the high-fuel runs.
Tomorrow, we’ll look to extract better qualifying pace."
ROKiT Williams Racing
George Russel (P19 in FP2)
George Russell
"It is good to return to Barcelona, we have done a lot of laps here, and all our simulator work, so I know the place well. It was a relatively positive Friday,
I think we are slightly closer to the rest of the field compared to what we were expecting. We learnt some good things from what we did test, which has given us a good understanding on what to work on tonight."
Robert Kubica (P20 in FP2)
Robert Kubica
“The feeling wasn’t too bad in FP1 and we worked through our programme.
The feeling wasn’t so great in FP2, so we now need to understand the reason for this, but it was still ok.
We also had to, for precautionary reasons, stop running for about 30 minutes to change one part so were unable to complete our long run programme.”
See Lap times 1st practice 2019 Spanish F1 GP
See Lap times 2nd practice 2019 Spanish F1 GP
Read What to expect from the 2019 Spanish F1 GP
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