Haas
Hirakawa was in the cockpit in place of Ocon for FP1, and despite running through the gravel early on, he gathered plenty of data for the team. Bearman, meanwhile, wound up in the top 10, to give the team high hopes for the rest of the weekend. But then Bearman spun off into the gravel at the start of FP2, damaging his car and missing a chunk of the session. Combined with the team’s lack of pace, it was a tricky opening day for the American outfit.
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Esteban Ocon – FP2: 1:14.005, P18
“It wasn’t easy, we need to understand a lot of things as the car was lacking here and there; some balance, a bit of inconsistency in some corners, and some overall grip. We need to look at how we optimise that better. There was only one real lap on the softs, there will be a few more tomorrow, and hopefully, we can work on it. On the technical directive, it didn’t make a big shift or change for us, it was very similar.”
Oliver Bearman – FP1: 1:14.597, P7; FP2: 1:14.126, P19
“It was a tough day, especially this afternoon struggling a little bit with the balance in high speed and having a bit of a moment which lost us some time, so that’s a shame. We have a bit of work to do overnight to work on the predictability of the car, but I think if we can find a good window we can be okay because in FP1 we showed pretty decent pace.”
Ryo Hirakawa – FP1: 1:15.298, P17
“As always, I’d like to give appreciation to the team for the great opportunity today. The track was really hot, so it was difficult out there and it was really easy to overheat the tyre, so we had to manage that quite a lot. I was suffering in braking, and in general there was lots to improve for FP2, and after the session we debriefed and some of those changes were made before FP2 started. I felt a lot more confident in the car compared to Bahrain and made a big step, and I have more FP1 sessions later in the season so I will keep preparing for them.”
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal
“It was a bit of a mixed Friday today. FP1 on Ollie’s side started pretty well and he had decent performance. Ryō was in the car for the second time in FP1 and struggled with brakes, but other than the brake issue I think he did a good job. His feedback was good, good work ethic, and his constructiveness was great. The fact he went off in Turn 10 – you could say that was a driver mistake – but his brake performance was as expected, so I think it looked worse than it was. I’m still overall happy with how Ryō’s performing and working with the team.
“FP2 was the disappointing part of the day, car performance wasn’t quite there compared to FP1. Ollie went off as well, so we have a bit of work to do tonight, but I think looking at FP1, we can make the car better and get both drivers up there.”
