Mercedes
Antonelli locked up at the start of FP1, perhaps a little surprised by the incredibly dusty track which was catching out most of the drivers. Russell too had a moment, going for a spot of lawn mowing midway through the session. But he did look quick on the softs, landing solidly in P4 on the timing sheet. That form continued in the second session, Russell quickest on both the soft and medium tyre as he impressed for the Silver Arrows. Antonelli managed to get on top of his warm up issues on the C6 tyre and backed up his team mate well in P3, which bodes very well for Mercedes heading into Qualifying day.
George Russell – FP1: 1:13.535, P4; FP2: 1:12.123, P1
“It’s nice to top the timing screens but it is only Friday. That said, it has been a positive day for us as a team. We came into the weekend with the expectation that the cooler temperatures and smoother tarmac here would suit us and today at least, that seemed to be the case. I managed to hook up a strong lap in FP2 and probably optimised the car we had. That may have flattered us slightly, but we can hopefully be in the mix with the usual suspects over the rest of the weekend.
“It will be interesting to see what the tyre strategy is in Qualifying. With the C6 compound, the gap between the Soft and the Medium over a single lap is not as pronounced as it is when at the harder end of the compound range. Many teams, including ourselves, opted to only use a single set of Medium tyres today so have the option of deploying that tomorrow.”
Kimi Antonelli – FP1: 1:14.002, P13; FP2: 1:12.411, P3
“Today was a good day for us as a team. Both our single lap and long run work were competitive, and I felt good with the car. We will keep pushing overnight to be in a good position for tomorrow, but we’ve given ourselves a solid base to work from. The cooler conditions and smooth track definitely helped us, but I think we’ve also made progress with the car as it felt more connected than in recent races.
“This track is a new one for me and I had a lot of fun out there. It’s not the easiest circuit to drive, particularly in FP1 when it was very dirty off line. I’ve continued to progress as the day went on and by the end of FP2, I felt comfortable out there. I also made a step with my ability to get the most out of the C6 tyre. I struggled with it in Imola and Monaco, but I worked hard on it today and felt like I made solid progress.”
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
“This was one of our more positive Fridays from a pace point of view. We expected the track to be better suited to our car than some recent circuits, with the cooler conditions helping on the long run too. Nevertheless, we seemed to get the car in a solid place and make the most of both sessions today. We’ve done plenty of work on high fuel and have a decent read on where we need to focus to find further improvements.
“George has performed strongly here in previous seasons and showed good pace in both FP1 and FP2. A strong lap gave him the fastest time of the day and his long run compared well to the others. For Kimi, this is his first experience of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, but he got up to speed quickly. By the end of the day, he was getting closer to his teammate and P3 was a good end to his Friday.
“Whilst today has been good by recent standards, it’s clear that quite a few cars could be in the fight at the front in qualifying. On the long run, the picture looked very close with the usual suspects so we will have to be at our best across the rest of the weekend if we want to turn today’s promise into good results on Sunday.”
