FP1 & FP2 - Japanese GP report: Mercedes

— Nico Rosberg topped the morning session with Lewis Hamilton P2
— Nico Rosberg then set the fastest time of the day in the afternoon session, Lewis Hamilton the second fastest
— Both drivers ran the hard and the soft compound tyres in the morning session. Nico ran the medium and the soft tyre in the afternoon, whilst Lewis ran the hard and the soft tyre

Nico Rosberg

It’s been a case of finding my way today. It began with quite a lot of under-steer and we had to work through the setup in order to find a better balance on the car. In the afternoon, the medium tyre didn’t seem as strong as the hard as we saw in Malaysia. However, on the soft tyre we showed strong one-lap pace, the balance felt good and the track was really exciting to drive. It looks like we’r e ahead of the Ferraris but it remains to be seen as to where we are compared to the Red Bulls.

Lewis Hamilton

It’s been a really good day with no problems on the car which is great. We managed to get plenty of laps in but there’s still some work to be done overnight in order to find more pace. That’s a work in progress and hopefully we’ll be going into Sunday in good shape. It’s great to be here in Japan and I’m excited to get out on track again for qualifying tomorrow.

Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical)

It’s great to be back here at this fantastic circuit with all the amazing and enthusiastic fans at every turn. It was nice to get some dry weather which we didn’t get last year and it allowed us to run through our programme and execute to plan, looking at all three tyres on both single and long-run pace. At this stage, our strategy for Sunday still remains wide open and we need to go through all the data overnight in order to start making plans for the race.