FP1 & FP2 - Belgian GP report: Toro Rosso Renault

Carlos Sainz

“It’s great to be back in the car and to do so at such an exciting track like Spa makes it an even better feeling. I enjoyed my first couple of laps in an F1 car for the first time here, it felt pretty special as this is the fastest I’ve ever driven around my favourite circuit! It was a positive day today. We know that it’s not going to be the easiest of race weekends for us as this track doesn’t suit our car very well, but we had a clean Friday. We managed to complete most of our run plan and, even though there were a bit too many red flags which means we are lacking a bit of information regarding the long run, I’m happy with today.”

Max Verstappen

“It was a good day today. I always enjoy driving at this great circuit and I’m happy to be back. Today it was my first time here at the wheel of an F1 car and it was a lot more challenging than with an F3 car. In general I’m happy with how the day went. Of course there’s still a few things to improve balance wise, but it was not bad at all. I slowly built my confidence up in FP1 and by the end of the session I was feeling great. In FP2 I didn’t manage to have a lot of free laps, but I’m happy with the behaviour of the car and I think our pace can keep on improving, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

Phil Charles (Chief Race Engineer)

“It was a very interesting day for us and everything looked okay. We arrived here knowing that this track doesn’t suit our car that well, but after a good FP1, our FP2 was slightly underwhelming, so we’ve got a little bit of homework to do tonight. We also need to understand the use of the Option tyre in the race, because we didn’t get a perfect run due to the stop-start red-flag nature of the session, which affected the rest of the teams in the same way as us. This has made things interesting and looking forward to Sunday there are still quite a few unanswered questions, so we are all going into the race a little more blind than normal, but ultimately I think we will be okay. After going through the data tonight, we will hopefully be able to find a little bit of short-run performance. As for the race, we will need to understand the tyres well and work on a good strategy, especially for Max now, as he will have to pick-up a grid penalty for changing his engine. It’s a pity, being this his home Grand Prix, but this is racing and we’re looking forward to the challenge!”