Friday Team Quotes

McLaren Formula 1 Team

Oscar Piastri (1st, 1:30.714): "A good first day. We've got lots of things to go over, but I think it's been a good start. The pace was solid, and I learned quite a lot, which was the main thing for today. It's all feeling pretty good at the moment, so I am excited to see what we can do tomorrow."

Lando Norris (5th, 1:31.197): "A slightly tricky first day on track here in Singapore, not quite being able to find the feeling I had last year just yet. There are a few things we've got to work on, but it's just about finding some more pace. We'll look at that overnight and make sure we're in the best possible position for tomorrow."

Andrea Stella, Team Principal: "A mixed first day on track in Singapore with multiple interruptions caused by Red Flags, which created a number of challenges for the team, including a collision in the pitlane, which is obviously not ideal at this stage of the weekend. Despite a second session that wasn't straightforward, we managed to work through most of our run plan, but like the rest of the field, we are still short of laps to gain a broader understand of the optimal car setup and tyre behaviour this weekend. As we have experienced across several race weekends this season, the competition is extremely tight with multiple teams challenging at the front of the grid. We will, therefore, continue to work hard overnight in order to maximise our running in Free Practice 3 ahead of Qualifying."

Scuderia Ferrari HP

Charles Leclerc (9th, 1:31.466): "Overall, it was a bit of a difficult day. FP1 gave us some positive indications and we were able to build a good base, while, for everyone, FP2 was much more chaotic and we didn't manage to put everything together as we wanted. I believe the pace is there and we need to maximise the potential executing everything well and bringing all the pieces together. I don't know if we'll be in the fight for pole, but the target is to qualify well and give ourselves the best possible chance for Sunday's race."

Lewis Hamilton (10th, 1:31.491): "Overall, it's been a productive first day. It's my first time driving here with Ferrari, and I'm feeling positive with how the car is behaving and responding on this track so far. We spent the sessions getting properly acclimatised and I feel we made good progress heading into FP2. It was a slightly disrupted evening with the red flags, so we weren't able to complete our long runs as planned, but there were still encouraging signs. There's work to do overnight, as always, but we'll take the positives from today and look to build on them for tomorrow."

Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal:

Enrico Gualtieri:

Oracle Red Bull Racing

Max Verstappen (3rd, 1:30.857): "I think FP1 started quite nicely and we were just getting up to speed with things. The car was not too bad and it was a bit like the last two weekends where there were no major problems. Then in FP2, there were a few things that we tried that worked, so we are going to try and optimise that a bit. Overall, I am pretty satisfied but we need a bit more pace to find good form tomorrow. There are small details to work on, including tyre grip and making sure we keep the tyres alive during the lap to stop them overheating. We want to get them in a good window so we can push harder. It is positive to hit the ground running; there are still a few things that we want to do better, but we don't need to change the set up too much which is good. We will see tomorrow if we are good enough to fight at the front, it is always difficult to say but we will have to see in Qualifying."

Yuki Tsunoda (11th, 1:31.708): "It was an interrupted day for all, with a few stoppages on track, particularly in FP2, which isn't great with Singapore being a confidence track. We do need to be able to have that time to get the drivers' confidence up and to get the balance a little bit more in the right window. It is quite tricky to get the new tyre in on the first lap so that will be the focus of analysis tonight. We are really missing our long run data so perhaps we will have a think about how we can rearrange our FP3 programme to collect a bit more data ahead of Sunday, because at this stage it is very difficult to know if we are looking at a one or two stop race and which compounds are going to be the more viable options."

Laurent Mekies, Team Principal: "It was an interrupted day for all, with a few stoppages on track, particularly in FP2, which isn't great with Singapore being a confidence track. We do need to be able to have that time to get the drivers' confidence up and to get the balance a little bit more in the right window. It is quite tricky to get the new tyre in on the first lap so that will be the focus of analysis tonight. We are really missing our long run data so perhaps we will have a think about how we can rearrange our FP3 programme to collect a bit more data ahead of Sunday, because at this stage it is very difficult to know if we are looking at a one or two stop race and which compounds are going to be the more viable options."

Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team

Andrea Kimi Antonelli (18th, 1:32.719): "The final result on the timing screen doesn't reflect how today went for us or what we could have achieved. In FP2 I had to abort my one attempt on the Soft compound as the red flag came out. I was into the final sector and was looking strong with a lap that would have put us near the top of the times at that point. We can take encouragement from that therefore and hopefully carry that pace into the rest of the weekend. I've felt good in the car today. We've still got things we can improve but obviously, with it being my first time racing here, there is a lot of room for improvement with my driving too. If we can take a step forward with both the car and my driving, then I think we can be in with a chance of fighting for a good grid position tomorrow. It's an enjoyable track, I felt at ease straight away, and I am looking forward to tomorrow and Sunday."

George Russell (20th, 1:33.531): "That was an interrupted first day of running here in Singapore. FP1 was challenging as we struggled to get the tyres switched on and get a handle on the balance. That improved for FP2, but my session ended in the wall with only a handful of laps completed. It was a weird accident and I'm not entirely sure what happened. I braked earlier than I had on previous laps but lost the rear; thankfully the car went into the barrier nose in, so it didn't do too much damage. It was annoying to lose the rest of the session so apologies to the team. Despite not getting our full programme completed, the pace we saw seemed decent. We didn't put a lap time on the board but when we put all our sectors together, it felt good. It's not been our best Friday but in Singapore things can change quickly and I'm looking forward to getting back on track tomorrow."

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: "Singapore, with its tricky street circuit layout and the hot and humid conditions, is always a challenge. The first day of running this weekend proved no different. As usual, FP1 saw the drivers getting to grips with the balance of the car whilst the track rubbered in. Whilst this session, along with FP3, is usually unrepresentative of the conditions we face in qualifying and the race, cloud cover and a relatively cool ambient temperature made it more relevant than normal. We were struggling to get the front tyres to come in and didn't really make a lot of progress on that issue during the session but were able to make some more substantial changes ahead of FP2. That seemed to put the car in a better place. Unfortunately, FP2 was a largely disrupted session. George only managed six laps before his day was ended after a snap into turn 16 put him in the barrier. Kimi meanwhile was set to post a strong Soft tyre lap before he had to back off for a yellow in the penultimate corner that eventually turned into a second red flag. We opted to focus on the long run to close the hour, in contrast with the rest of the grid. Whilst that has left us near the bottom of the time sheets, it has allowed us to have a proper look at the long run balance and temperatures."

Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team

Fernando Alonso (4th, 1:30.877):

Lance Stroll (6th, 1:31.222):

BWT Alpine F1 Team

Pierre Gasly (16th, 1:32.458): "It is always a unique challenge driving in Singapore with the conditions. It is not an easy one for us as it is very bumpy and that is an area where we tend to struggle more. So, it's been a busy day at the wheel and it's been good to try lots of things to try and further understand what we need to improve our package. The gap to the cars ahead is still not where we would like it to be but we will focus on ourselves and see what we can do to improve. There are a couple of corners here where I know we can do better tomorrow so we will try and work on those. I am feeling good in the car in terms of being comfortable at its limit. We need more than that, though, so we will see what more we can do. We also tried the cooling device today. I must say I don't have any thoughts and feelings on it, so that probably means it was quite seamless and worked as intended."

Franco Colapinto (19th, 1:33.139): "We had a productive day on track today, trying and testing lots of different things on the car. It's what Fridays are for, and we have a lot of useful data to go through tonight and make sure we're in the best possible position entering Qualifying tomorrow. Overtaking can be tricky here, so starting as far up the grid as possible will be important to having a good weekend. We managed to put in a lot of laps and complete most of the programme despite the interrupted second session due to some red flags. The laps towards the end of the session I felt the car was improving but I touched the wall at Turn 17 and didn't improve on my lap time. Lots to build on overnight and in Free Practice 3 tomorrow and we'll make sure to keep fine-tuning to try and maximise everything from our package."

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team

Esteban Ocon (7th, 1:31.298): “It’s been a very solid day, I’m very happy with it, it’s probably been the best Friday of the year for us. We need to wait and see, we need to keep chasing, as you know with balance and the good grip we had today, normally there are a lot of things that change overnight. Tonight as a team we need to keep the maximum of what we had today, and just make small changes ahead of tomorrow.”

Oliver Bearman (12th, 1:31.711): “The car seems quick, and we’ve had a good day. FP1 was tricky for me as I was learning the track, but in FP2 I felt like I had a bit more rhythm and could extract more out of the car. The red flags made it tougher as it would’ve been nice to get some high-fuel running in, but even to have less interrupted low-fuel running would’ve been helpful as I’m still finding the rhythm, and it’s tough where there are stoppages, however everyone is in the same boat. When the final red flag came out, it was clear to scrap high-fuel and focus on qualifying pace – it’s important around here – and that seemed the right call, everyone was doing it.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: “I think it was a decent Friday. Everyone worked pretty well, we just need to tighten up on some operational things that will be key to execute tomorrow. The car is working well, it’s all about finetuning now – do the basics, pay attention to detail, and focus on executing a good qualifying tomorrow.”

Visa Cash App Racing Bulls F1 Team

Isack Hadjar (2nd, 1:30.846): "Today was my first day driving here in Singapore and it was nice as I felt comfortable in the car. I really like the circuit and the car works well, but FP2 wasn't an easy session on track as there was quite a lot of traffic. We did our lap time quite late in the session but we ended it with a good result. At the moment it looks like we're struggling on the first push lap when we're on new tyres, so looking at the rest of the weekend there's definitely still some work to do."

Liam Lawson (17th, 1:32.645): "FP2 wasn't the session I hoped for, having caught a little bit too much kerb at turn 16. This bounced me across to the left at turn 17 while carrying the speed, which put me into the wall. Overall, the car has been very fast today despite a tricky FP1. We'd tried a few different things before a much more comfortable FP2 up until the moment which ended my session. We'll be making some more changes overnight and I'll learn from today so we can pull everything together for Qualifying."

Mattia Spini, Chief Race Engineer: "Singapore presents several challenges being a night race on a bumpy street circuit. With 19 corners, it is demanding on tyres and makes ride performance more critical than at conventional venues. Similar to Monaco, drivers build confidence progressively, chipping away at lap time as they get closer to the walls and attack the kerbs more aggressively. In FP1 we ran different setup configurations across the cars to collect data. By FP2 the cars were more closely aligned, as were lap times on the first tyre runs. On the Soft compound, Liam was on a competitive lap but took too much kerb and lost the car just before the final corner, making contact with the wall. Isack managed to complete a very fast lap, but we are mindful that our competitors will be working hard overnight – and so will we."

Williams Racing

Carlos Sainz (8th, 1:31.299): "We've been relatively competitive all day. In FP2 we went with a different car setup and I struggled a bit more compared to FP1, losing a bit of confidence, so we'll look into reverting back to the original configuration. We've got some homework to do tonight, as again we seem to struggle on the softs. Qualifying position is everything here, so we need to get into the right rhythm and make the right choices ahead of tomorrow."

Alexander Albon (13th, 1:32.060): "Not our best Friday today. Unfortunately, we had an issue in FP1 with our rear brakes, so we didn't get any track running in and started the day on the back foot. It is so important to get laps in around this circuit because the track is so peaky and the windows are very small, so not getting subsequent laps puts you in a position where you just keep trying to learn the circuit. It was a very disjointed day, especially with the red and yellow flags, but we'll see what we can understand from today and look to restart tomorrow."

Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber

Nico Hulkenberg (14th, 1:32.069): "It's great to be racing in Singapore again. FP2 was quite disrupted with red flags, so it wasn't the usual Friday run plan, and nobody managed proper long runs, which makes Sunday a bit more of an unknown for everyone. We didn't really get consistent runs together today, so there's some homework to do overnight. We need to work on the balance and tidy up a few areas, but overall, we gathered useful information to build on. In terms of conditions, I believe it felt more manageable than last year – whether that's down to the weather or the cooling system working well."

Gabriel Bortoleto (15th, 1:32.319): "It was good to get out on track and get a proper understanding of what to expect this weekend. While the first practice session was smooth overall, FP2 wasn't a clean session with a lot of traffic making it challenging to put together proper laps, on top of a few interruptions. Overall, it felt okay out there, but I think there's still some work to do on finding the right balance. The car was a bit tricky to drive at times, but there's plenty of data to analyse overnight as we prepare for qualifying tomorrow."