Practice: Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton:“There are lots of areas we can improve on, but generally it feels like a solid platform and a solid start to the weekend. I seem to have a lot of support out here, which I am super grateful for. I’m excited to see everyone tomorrow.”

Valtteri Bottas:“We got everything from today that we needed. Setup-wise I think we have the usual work to do. It has been a pretty normal day. “I’m hoping there is more to come tomorrow. Hopefully it stays dry, it would be nicer for the teams and the fans.”

Red Bull

Max Verstappen:“在具有挑战性的一年这是一个很好的感觉ign a new contract and continue this strong relationship. I really believe in the team and they believe in me, we have a great working relationship and they gave me the chance to start a career in Formula One. We have had our ups and downs this year but I still feel really good in the team, you can see they have been working really hard to improve and today shows that we are again competitive. I enjoy being in this team which is very important for me so that’s why I decided to extend my contract. If we can learn from what happened this year I have no doubt that this team can build the best car on the grid and start 2018 competing at the front. I have learnt a lot this year after what has happened, which is definitely positive. Today we showed good pace both in long run simulation and short stints so I think we have the ability to achieve a good result here.”

Daniel Ricciardo:“It was not that easy today actually. The grip on the circuit was really low for what we were expecting with lap times. It’s humid so the tyres were getting really hot and then you struggle to generate the desirable grip on the car. We have a few things we can obviously try for tomorrow, now that we understand a bit more from these sessions. We didn’t really have the ideal set up but I think with all those things considered we’re not a million miles off the pace and if we can get it right tomorrow we can still be up there. That’s our target and that’s realistic so we’ll work on that and hopefully you’ll see us amongst the top three tomorrow.”

Ferrari

Sebastian Vettel:“It was a complicated afternoon and not an easy session, but the car is quick, so we don’t need to worry too much about it. The only lap I had was the one with the Ultrasofts. Before that, I made a mistake taking too much risk and pushing too early. The track was quite slippery and I lost the rear under braking. So, we lost a set of tires, and then again, towards the end of the session, I felt that something was not right with the car. So, we checked a couple of times and now we are looking at the car to see if we can find something. I need to find the rhythm tomorrow and make sure everything’s in order.”

Kimi Raikkonen:“In the morning the weather was a bit tricky to start with, but all in all it was an ok day. Just a normal Friday, in which we tried different things and learned as much as possible. Every circuit can be tricky when you’re trying to go fast, and for sure there can always be an improvement; but it was only the first day of practice. We don’t know what the other teams were doing and obviously it’s too early to make any predictions. All we know is that tonight we have some work to do for tomorrow.”