FP1 & FP2 - 2018 Monaco GP team quotes

Sauber

The Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team has completed the first day of free practice sessions at the Circuit de Monaco ahead of the 2018 FIA Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix. It was the first time for Monegasque rookie, Charles Leclerc, to experience the streets of his hometown in the cockpit of a Formula 1 car. It was a productive day for Marcus Ericsson as well. Both drivers worked in preparation for the race on the city circuit of Monaco where the track layout is particularly challenging for the team; despite the track demands with high levels of downforce, they are optimistic for tomorrow’s sessions, with the gaps between all competitors being very close.

Marcus Ericsson

“It has been quite a good day. It is important to get in a lot of laps on Thursday in Monaco, so that is a positive for us. We struggled a bit of the hypersoft tyres, but apart from that it was a smooth day. We built up the speed and have a good base to work from for Saturday and Sunday. I look forward to the rest of the weekend.”

Charles Leclerc

“It was a productive day for us. It ran quite smoothly overall. We know that this track is going to be a challenge for us, and we have used today’s practice sessions to start setting up our car in the best possible way. We will now look at our data and start working on preparations for tomorrow’s qualifying session. I look forward to being back in the car.”

Toro Rosso

Brendon Hartley

“It was a really positive day, it’s awesome to drive around Monaco for the first time in a Formula 1 car! It’s a special feeling around here, dancing from wall to wall. In terms of performance, I think straight away we were in the top 10 on the Hypersoft. We finished the morning P12, but running on the harder compound tyre which looked positive. In the afternoon, I was 11th on the Hypersoft which is promising, it’s very close to the cars ahead and also the cars behind. We’re definitely in the fight, and the goal has to be Q3. It’s tricky here with traffic, you have to be clever with strategy in qualifying - and a bit lucky too! I’m happy to get the new updated aero parts that Pierre was running in the first two sessions. The team has done a good job to bring some updates here and all of the emphasis now goes into getting us as far up the grid as we can!”

Pierre Gasly

“First day in Monaco, it’s really cool to be back driving these streets! The last time was in 2016, and it’s one of the most amazing tracks of the year, so it’s really good to be here. We tried a couple of things today, and at the moment I think it’s really close between P7 to the back of the field, so it will be super tight this weekend. I didn’t really find the right settings to feel fully comfortable with the car, so I’m a bit out of sync at the moment, but Brendon looks pretty good, so we’re probably going to work and analyse more tonight to try and find the best package. The car seems to be fast so if we manage to find two or three tenths I think we can fight to be in the top 10 - that will be the target for us to work towards tomorrow.”

Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer):

“The team enjoyed a successful day all round. Monaco is a circuit with a unique layout and very different requirements from the car compared to the other circuits we have raced at this season, so the setup is very different to the tracks that we’ve run before. It goes without saying that drivers are important at all track but in particular here there’s an awful lot to be gained from giving the driver a car that has good stability and one that he can build confidence. Since neither has driven here before in F1 the plan was to give both drivers as many laps as possible in both sessions, which we did generally on the whole. P1 was a very good session as both drivers completed the entire plan. We didn’t have too many mechanical setup tests to carry out as it’s very difficult to quantify tests here because the track evolution is so big. However, we did come here with new aero parts which we fitted to one of the cars. So throughout the sessions we were analysing the data and building on our knowledge. For P2, we did make some setup changes to the cars to try and improve the overall balance, it was more fine tuning because the drivers were pretty happy and we were looking quite competitive. The first low fuel runs were good - we were very happy - then we had a red flag for the issue with the track. Then obviously it becomes difficult, because everyone wants to go out at the same time, so it was hard to find a good gap in the traffic. We were one of the first cars out so we had clean out laps, but then we caught cars who were late going out which interrupted our timed laps. This meant our second runs weren’t as clean as they could have been, so I don’t think we’ve shown the true performance. I think the car is looking competitive here which is encouraging – on the short runs and the high fuel. We had an issue with Pierre’s car on the high-fuel run, it appears to be some kind of brake issue, so we need to understand what’s caused that, fix it, and ensure we have no issues going into the race - I’m confident we’ll get to the bottom of it. On the whole, it was a very positive day, and I think we’ve got some good confidence going into P3 and Qualifying.”

Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director):

“As usual on the first day of practice, we have worked on tuning our settings step by step to suit this circuit. In today’s sessions, we took into account two factors, firstly the fact that the track will get much quicker over the weekend, as it gets cleaner and rubbers in and secondly, data from today did not correlate in every area to our simulation work, so we made adjustments accordingly. The mid-field looks very close, but the team reckon the car is working well here, so we feel we can have a good qualifying and race. One feature of Monaco is that we now have a whole day to study our data and prepare for qualifying in two days’ time.”

Red Bull

DANIEL RICCIARDO

“This is a place I always love driving. It helps when you’re fast but regardless it’s just so much fun driving an F1 car around here. Having the hypersoft tyre gives us that little bit more grip and it’s pretty cool to be breaking lap records. I’m glad that was the fastest lap that anyone has ever done as it felt so quick, but I think on Saturday we will go even quicker again. Some parts of the track are just amazing, Tabac and Turn 12 in particular are a lot of fun. The intention this weekend is to try and win and be dominant. Both cars today ran really well in the sessions and Max and I were fighting for the top spot all day. I think come Qualifying the others will turn it up and I’m sure it will tighten up as you never know what the other teams are doing, but all we could do today was try and top the times, which is what we have done.”

MAX VERSTAPPEN

“Today’s performance was good and the car seems to be working really well around here. It actually felt easy to drive with not too many setup issues which is nice, especially on a street circuit. We have a great car but it struggles when we have long straights, you can see as soon as we come here where the straights are not too long we have good pace. We still have to improve but throughout the entire lap we seem competitive, I didn’t quite manage to link all the sectors together but it’s only Thursday. The hypersofts seem to have a lot of grip and they appear to suit the car so this is encouraging for Qualifying. Again, the other teams’ engine modes will make a difference on Saturday but I think we can be a real challenger regardless and put ourselves in the best position to achieve a victory on race day.”

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton

It’s been an okay day, we didn’t suffer any damage which is a good thing. I said yesterday the Red Bulls were going to be quick which they were today. As expected, we struggled a little bit more. The car felt good in some places, in others it felt bad. So we have got some things to work on, but we’re not completely in the dark; we’re in a much better place than we were last year. We’re closer to Red Bull and Ferrari than I expected, but we’re still a few tenths off. So we’ve got some ground to cover and pick up if we want to be in the fight for the win. We’ve got to keep working on the set-up and try and see if we can pull out some more potential from the car. The HyperSoft felt good, but it doesn’t last very long. It looks good for qualifying but could be interesting in the race.

Valtteri Bottas

As we expected it was quite difficult today. We thought that Red Bull and Ferrari were going to be quick here and they were. The car didn’t feel great in FP1 and we struggled a bit on the HyperSoft tyres. In FP2, we got it to work better. The gaps between the three teams are not too big though, which is good. We know our car has a lot of pace, but it is difficult to find the right set-up for this track. If we can find a good set-up and get some good laps in for qualifying, we should be able to fight for the pole, but I think it will be the most challenging qualifying session we’ve had this year. I’m very proud to be driving with my special Mika Häkkinen helmet in Monaco this weekend. Mika has proven in the past that the helmet design and a Silver Arrow are a good combination, so hopefully I will be able to get a good result as well.

Andrew Shovlin

We’ve had pretty good sessions today with both cars. It’s never easy in Monaco as the track is so short it’s near impossible to put together more than two or three clear laps but both drivers have a good feel for the car and we have identified a few areas where we need to improve the balance. It’s our first proper experience of the HyperSoft tyre which is giving good grip on single laps; however needs a bit of looking after on the longer run. In terms of pace it’s difficult to know where we stand today, it does feel like Red Bull are the ones to watch in qualifying but we’re in much better shape than we were this time last year and we’ve certainly got a car that is behaving more normally. The track is going to evolve a lot over the next couple of days and it can have a big impact on the balance of the car and how the tyres are working. As such, it’s never easy to know how much to change for the final practice session but if we can improve a few issues in certain corners we should be in decent shape for qualifying and the race and be in a position to put some pressure on the others.

Haas F1

The sixth round of the 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship began with practice Thursday at Circuit de Monaco as teams prepared for the 76th Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday.

Two 90-minute sessions – FP1 and FP2 – on the 3.337-kilometer (2.074-mile), 19-turn track allowed drivers to methodically build speed and lower their lap times on a circuit that has remained relatively unchanged since it first saw racecars in 1929.

Haas F1 Team drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen faced adversity in FP1, each with differing outcomes. After both completed an installation lap on the Pirelli P Zero Purple ultrasoft tire, their baseline stints that followed became problematic.

Magnussen turned just seven laps before an issue relating to the fuel system relegated him to the garage. He wound up 20th on the speed chart with a best lap of 1:18.801 earned on his sixth tour.

Grosjean lost 50 minutes of valuable running after brushing the wall at Tabac (turn 12) toward the end of his maiden run. A new floor was needed on his Haas VF-18, and after the time-consuming fix was completed, only 10 minutes remained in the session. Grosjean made the most of the time, clocking a best lap of 1:13.943 on the 18th of his 24 laps, good for ninth overall.

The Red Bull duo of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen led the way in FP1, with Ricciardo’s quick time of 1:12.126 besting his teammate by .154 of a second and easily eclipsing the previous track record of 1:12.178 set by Scuderia Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen in qualifying for last year’s Monaco Grand Prix.

FP2 remained a frustrating affair for Haas F1 Team, but for different reasons than FP1. Traffic on the shortest track on the Formula One calendar conspired against both drivers, with each struggling to find a clean lap. A 15-minute red flag stoppage to better secure manhole covers on the street circuit also limited on-track running.

Despite those hurdles, they still managed to better their times from FP1. Magnussen was 16th quickest with a lap of 1:13.572, which was 5.229 seconds better than his best lap from his truncated FP1 session. Grosjean fell to 18th fastest, but his quick time of 1:13.763 was still .18 of a second better than his best FP1 time.

Hypersofts were the tire of choice for both drivers to set their fast laps. Magnussen earned his quick time on his 21st tour while Grosjean scored his best time on his 22nd lap. Magnussen began FP2 on the Red supersoft tire, running 13 laps before switching to hypersofts. Grosjean chose Purple ultrasofts to begin the session, logging 10 laps before bolting on hypersofts. Magnussen tallied 42 laps in FP2 and Grosjean completed 37 laps.

Ricciardo and Verstappen remained the front runners in FP2. Ricciardo’s lap of 1:11.841 set a new benchmark, with Verstappen .194 of a second behind.

Between the two sessions, Haas F1 Team ran a total of 109 laps – 61 by Grosjean and 48 by Magnussen.

Romain Grosjean

“We haven’t been able to find a sweet spot on the car and we haven’t found the grip we wanted to have for around here. Obviously, we’re not very happy with the positions. Hopefully, we’re going to get the tires to work better, get the grip out of them, and then the performance should rise quite nicely. Right now, we’re not looking like we’d make it to Q3, but it’s about finding the grip on the track. I’m sure the engineers are going to work really hard and get everything in the window with the tires, the temperature, and make sure we get the grip out of them. If we do so, the car’s been really good everywhere, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t be competitive.”

Kevin Magnussen

“Obviously, we’re not where we wanted to be today, in terms of pace, and also in terms of not getting much running in FP1. I’m hoping for a better day on Saturday. We’ve got lots of time to work on the car with having Friday off, at least from driving, and we can think a lot more about the setup. Hopefully, we’ll improve the situation for qualifying. The whole field is very tight, so even though it looks bad position-wise, we don’t have to find that much time to go quite a bit forward.”

Gunther Steiner

“It wasn’t easy for us. We had a few issues in FP1 and we didn’t get a lot of running. That always puts you a little bit behind here as the drivers need to get used to it and get laps. In FP2, we weren’t where we wanted to be, but I think we roughly know why. There is room for improvement and we know where to go.”

Williams

Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer

I think the drivers have done a commendable job. We’ve had a couple of issues, but I think for two young drivers trying to get as much track time as possible we certainly haven’t been particularly penalised so that’s good. We purposely kept the programmes simple to maximise track time and that has worked quite well. In FP1 we were quite tactical in how we ran to give our drivers time when the track was quieter. FP2 was then focused on getting their low and high fuel runs in so they could understand the car. I think the car has been reasonably well-balanced, so the engineers have done a good job there. There’s some work for us to do overnight, but we’ve got an extra 24 hours to think about it. It’s amazing that we can get everything done in six hours elsewhere, yet we will take 30 hours in Monaco, but that’s engineers for you. Overall, I think on high and low fuel, the pace has been relatively better than Spain. With the circuit characteristics here, we would expect it to be kinder to us. We’ve done a reasonable job in exploiting the car to get the most out of this circuit.

Sergey Sirotkin

I would say today has gone quite well. FP1 was reasonable, FP2 could have been quite a bit better. With the traffic and everything, I didn’t have a clean lap. There was always something compromising my lap, I was not in the right spot or the right window for the tyres. There is room for improvement but it’s good. We’ve seen already position-wise we are better than in Barcelona, but it was not the best of what we could do. I would not say we are very optimistic but it’s looking quite good. It’s challenging but if it was easy anyone would do it. We don’t have the easiest car to drive here. It’s a very demanding car and track but I really enjoy this challenge.

Lance Stroll

It was not the best day, but it is the first day, so I am just getting into it and Monaco is one of those places where you need to find the rhythm before you can really execute anything. We have been on the back foot for most of the day and I didn’t really feel I had been on top of the car. However, at least I started to get there towards the end of the session, and especially on high fuel on consecutive laps I felt it was getting better and better. We will be piecing everything together and see on Saturday what we can do. For sure we are far from where we want to be, but there is still a lot of time to think about what we can do before qualifying and the race. We look a little bit better this weekend, and I think Sergey showed the car has a little bit more pace.

Force India

SERGIO PEREZ

“The general feeling with the car is good, but we need to improve the balance to find some more lap time before qualifying. It is going to be a very close battle in the midfield, but if we do a good job over the next few days we can battle for a place in Q3.”

ESTEBAN OCON

“It’s always awesome to drive here. It’s a special track and very technical, which makes it complicated to find the right set-up. The track evolved a huge amount during the day and you have to adapt to the conditions and not go over the limit. I kissed the wall gently this morning, but there were no other dramas and we built up our speed with each run. It’s all about getting your confidence up before Saturday and it was important to keep out of trouble.”

OTMAR SZAFNAUER

“It was a positive Thursday. We ran reliably in both practice sessions and completed our programme despite the red flag that cost us some time. We split the aero items between the two cars and evaluated some new parts. We had the chance to run the new hypersoft tyres for the first time and the feedback is positive: the grip is impressive and it’s an increase compared to the ultrasoft compound. We improved the car throughout the day but we expect the margins between teams in the midfield to remain very small. There is still plenty to do, but we did our homework today and gathered all the race tyre data we needed. This circuit is all about maximising track time, building the confidence and finding a rhythm. We did a good job today but the real work starts now.”

McLaren

Stoffel Vandoorne headed McLaren’s practice for the Monaco Grand Prix, finishing an encouraging eighth quickest after two tricky sessions around the unyielding streets of the Principality.

Fernando Alonso, who lost most of the morning session while his mechanics removed the floor and bodywork to trace the source of a brake-by-wire sensor issue, ended the day ninth, just 0.038s behind his team-mate.

Neither driver declared themselves completely happy with the balance of the car; accordingly, the engineers will spend tomorrow’s extra day working to refine the set-up ahead of Saturday afternoon’s ultra-critical qualifying session.

Fernando Alonso

"A tough day.

"In the first session, I had an issue with the brakes and we lost most of the morning. That was quite disappointing because you need as many laps as possible around here to build up your confidence. The guys in the garage did a great job and the car was fully ready for the second session, when we were able to recover some of those lost laps.

"Due to the track evolution, you drive one car in FP1, a different one in FP2, and an entirely new one in qualifying, where you are two seconds quicker. So it’s important to adapt – we need to be flexible. Qualifying here is 99 per cent of the race, so once you put a good lap together on Saturday, the race becomes a little bit easier.

"There’s still more to come from us. Hopefully, we can put a good lap together on Saturday."

Stoffel Vandoorne

"It’s been a pretty tricky Thursday, actually. The sessions didn’t go as smoothly as we’d wanted: FP1 was difficult, but we made a big step during FP2. That was when things came together, but I still think we can take another step forward for Saturday and be in a better position for qualifying.

"Confidence is everything around here. The car was a bit of a handful and a bit unpredictable today, so we struggled a little bit. Still, by the end, we managed to set some decent lap-times.

"The times are so close – you can’t leave anything on the table this weekend or else you’ll find yourself out in Q1. It’s going to be up to us to make the best out of it, do everything perfectly and do a proper job.

"Fortunately, I still feel there is a bit to come from us."

Eric Boullier

“You always think you’re ready for another Monaco Grand Prix weekend, but then never fail to be awestruck by the sheer spectacle of Formula 1 cars racing at speed around these fast, narrow streets.

“Today, we had a relatively pain-free pair of sessions – Fernando’s running was delayed this morning by a small brake-by-wire issue, but we ended the day with plenty of mileage under our belts, and lots to analyse tonight and tomorrow ahead of qualifying on Saturday.

“There’s still plenty of work left to do: neither driver really felt that they had full confidence in their cars today, so we’ll be diving deep into the data to see if we can turn that feeling round for Saturday. Confidence is everything at a place like this, so it’d be hugely beneficial for us if we can address those issues.”

Renault F1

Renault Sport Formula One Team hit the streets of Monte Carlo today as practice for the Monaco Grand Prix got underway.

Both drivers enjoyed a productive day, with 142 laps of the 3.337km sinuous street track covered in total. Nico Hülkenberg concluded his running with the seventh quickest time, 1:13.047, with Carlos Sainz closely matched in tenth position.

Alan Permane, Sporting Director - Technical programme notes

— We ran our high downforce package for the first time today.
— Nico also ran with updated bargeboards, which will be used on both cars from Saturday onwards.
— Over both sessions we tried to gain as much running as possible to get the drivers confident and comfortable in the car.
— Both Nico and Carlos ran only on the Hypersoft tyre today to gather data for the all-important Qualifying session. The Hypersoft tyres are working pretty well here.

Nico Hülkenberg

“A standard ‘Friday’ for us today. There’s not much to say; we had a couple of front lock-ups, therefore my runs got cut short with some bad flat spots. This morning I was not so happy with the car as it was quite difficult but we made some very good progress over lunch and I was much happier in P2. I think we’ve got a pretty good baseline going forward into Qualifying on Saturday.”

Carlos Sainz

“Overall it’s been an encouraging day for the team. A good baseline work from the beginning of the day helped to put in some good laps during P1. P2 was more difficult due to lots of traffic so I did not have the chance to get a clean lap, but the car is more or less where we want it to be and we will improve again for Saturday.”

Nick Chester, Chassis Technical Director

“Today was a productive day, despite the traffic we always experience in Monaco. The pace looks pretty good and we completed all our programme, getting in the laps and making the drivers comfortable. In the morning session Carlos was pretty happy with the car, although Nico wasn’t quite so comfortable so we made a fair amount of set-up changes on his car between P1 and P2. Both ended up fairly happy and it looks like we have a reasonable baseline for the rest of the weekend.”

Ferrari

At the end of the two free practice sessions, on a track that was rapidly evolving and with lap times consistently going down, Scuderia Ferrari drivers Seb Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen came away with the third and fifth best times in P2 respectively, while the SF71H showed a consistent pace in race-trim simulation.

“This first day was not too bad, a pretty normal Thursday”, Kimi said. “The feeling with the car was not too bad, but this track is always quite tricky to start with, and we were trying many different things. The drive around the circuit is a bit more complicated than in other places; it’s easier to end up making a big mistake, while in a normal place you would just end in a run-off area. You need to be more careful and start pushing when you feel that everything is all right. For sure there are things to improve, but we were able to do what was planned and managed to stay out of trouble. It’s difficult to have a clear picture; in many practice sessions we have seen some cars being very fast on Friday and then in qualifying it’s a different case. Let’s wait and see what happens on Saturday”.

And here’s Seb’s comment on the day: “I think it was a decent day. In Monaco there’s always traffic, and today we had the red flag, so that it was a bit messy. It’s not that easy to get everything together in a lap here. I am not entirely happy about the second and the last sector. So, I think there’s something we can do better. I believe we got the best out of the tires and on Saturday it will be very close.

There isn’t more pressure on this track than on the others, but I think it’s more fun. The track is very challenging and you have no room for mistakes but it’s quite enjoyable. You think twice before trying something here. However, I have a good feeling with the car. Today I trusted my car and even if I was sliding a little bit, I knew I wouldn’t have touched the barrier. We still need to improve, but generally it’s good fun driving around”.