“It’s difficult to get an accurate read on pace: we stuck to our programme today and didn’t appear to be too far off, but you never know what fuel-loads or engine levels the other teams are running. Still, we got some good data and made some positive improvements so, in all likelihood, we look as competitive today as we have in the past.
“We have taken some small steps forward – we put a new front-wing on and it naturally appeared to be a little bit better. Globally, it’s not too bad. It didn’t feel too good this morning on the harder tyre, which was difficult to switch on and difficult to make last, but this afternoon’s running was very positive.
“There’s a big difference between the two Pirelli compounds – and that will hopefully have a positive impact on the show this weekend!”
MARTIN WHITMARSH
Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
“For this morning’s session, we deliberately followed separate programmes on each car to ensure we could log as much data as possible with our planned upgrades. We limited running to the same fuel-load and the same tyres for the entirety of the session, and also ran without DRS; that meant that our times throughout P1 were not particularly representative.
“However, we logged a significant amount of positive data and were able to merge our two divergent development paths into a singular programme for this afternoon – with encouraging results.
“While neither Lewis nor Jenson were completely happy with the balance of their cars, it seems as if we’ve made some positive progress. Inevitably, we still have a significant amount of data to sift through this evening, but we feel confident that we can take a further step in the right direction for tomorrow.
“All in all, a positive day.”
