Team reaction after day one in Abu Dhabi (part 1)

McLaren Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton: “We’ve been hoping for some time to improve our revised rear wing. It hasn’t really been working fully since we first tested it at Suzuka, so we’ve not been able to use it to its fullest extent. We knew that it had potential though – and to have it finally working properly is a huge plus for us.

“The car feels good, so I’m hopeful for a good qualifying result tomorrow afternoon. Of course, it will be tough, because the Red Bulls tend to pull out half a second in Q3, but our pace is closer to theirs than it’s ever been.

“Of all the weekends this year, this time I feel like we really do have the right package to challenge the fastest cars. I think we can fight for the front row.

“My visit to the stewards was just to explain what happened out on track with Bruno [Senna]. It was a bit of a misunderstanding: he was trying to start his lap, and I was trying to come into the pits. I’ll go and speak to Bruno to make sure everything’s cool.”

Jenson Button: “Today showed us there are a few areas where we need to improve my car. We changed a few things for the afternoon session, and I struggled with the balance – front locking is an issue, as it has been for the past few races. There’s not enough consistency, so I think we’re running a downforce level that’s too low for this circuit.

“So that’s probably not the way forward, but at least it’s shown us the reasons why the pace wasn’t there. It seems like Lewis’s car, which was in a different configuration to mine, is still very quick – so hopefully we can find that same sweet-spot with my car.

“I want to enjoy the rest of the weekend – and there are lots of reasons to feel optimistic for tomorrow.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal: “We come to this race determined to end an already successful season on a high, and to consolidate our second position in the constructors’ world championship. To that end, we’ve aggressively refined our rear wing design into its final iteration, and initial tests suggest it’s delivering the additional performance we’d anticipated.

“Lewis set a very strong pace in both practice sessions, ending the day fastest overall – a result that provides us with plenty of encouragement as we continue to refine our car overnight.

“Jenson was less satisfied with his car’s balance, once again encountering the front-locking issues that have affected him in recent races. However, he and his engineers are confident they can overcome these issues before practice resumes tomorrow.

“Last year, this race was ‘the one that got away’ from us following Lewis’s early mechanical retirement after leading the opening laps. Now, the whole team will be looking to make up for that with victory this weekend – that’s very much our aim.”

Red Bull Renault

Sebastian Vettel: “That wasn’t bad, the car felt strong early afternoon, although tonight it was a bit different due to the conditions. All in all I was pretty happy, I think there is some lap time still to gain – so we will analyse things now and hopefully pick up some pace tomorrow. As expected, the McLaren was quick today, Ferrari is up there and the Renault isn’t looking too bad either so we will see what we can do.”

Mark Webber: “That was a good day; we had an engine change in between the two sessions, which was planned. It was the usual suspects up at the front today and Fernando, Seb and I were pretty much on similar times. The car is close to what we had in Brazil, it’s hard to develop a car which is pretty solid already. It feels a bit like we’re in Bahrain here in terms of the engineers’ office and in the car it feels like a normal weekend, but obviously there’s a lot more at stake – that’s the only thing that’s changed, but you can’t try any harder.”

Ferrari

A good first day of free practice for Scuderia Ferrari at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the final and, at least in the case of the Drivers’ title, decisive race of the 2010 season. A small problem on the fuel injection system prevented Felipe Massa from completing his planned programme, while Fernando Alonso had a trouble free day.

Stefano Domenicali: “As always you have to take Friday’s results with a grain of salt because there are too many variables at play to be able to draw a really precise conclusion. We are tackling this weekend with the same sort of approach that we have adopted throughout the whole season: we are well aware of our target and we will do our utmost to reach it, without spending too much time doing the sums. We can claim to have got off to a reasonable start, but there is still a lot of work to do. We are up against very strong rivals in Red Bull and McLaren and beating them will be very difficult, but we will leave nothing to chance. This is a special event for us: we have many ties to Abu Dhabi, a country in a state of rapid growth and which has become something of a second home for us. Coming here and being able to see a fantastic structure like the Ferrari World Abu Dhabi was really exciting: everyone should come and spend at least one day at it!”

Felipe Massa: “Overall, it was a good debut for me at this track, where I was unable to race last year. My times came down progressively, both because of the changing track conditions and also, as lap after lap, I managed to learn where I could push harder. It was a shame I had a little problem towards the end of the second session which prevented me from doing my last series of laps with a heavy fuel load. I hope to be able to continue to make progress so as to be in the fight for the top places. The car seems to handle well: now we must analyse the data we have gathered to try and make the right choices in terms of set-up and aerodynamic configuration. I am sure that there is room to improve our performance level.”

Fernando Alonso: “This weekend has got off on the right foot for us, as we gathered a lot of data which is now being evaluated by our engineers. The first thing to do on a Friday is to check that everything is alright and that the handling of the car corresponds to what we have seen in the simulations and after that you have to work on improving performance by changing set-up and aerodynamic downforce levels and that is exactly what we did during these three hours. We are reasonably pleased with the car’s level of competitiveness and the fact it feels easy to drive, but we know there is still more potential that can be extracted to go even quicker. I expect tomorrow’s qualifying to be very tight: let’s hope we can get closer to the Red Bulls than we have been in the past. There is no point in speculating over the possible scenarios that could unfold in the race: we have to concentrate on ourselves and on how to make the car go faster.”

Chris Dyer: “The surprise today was the rain shower which hit the track just before the first free practice session! It’s not what one expects here in Abu Dhabi, but luckily, it did not upset our planned programme in any way. As for the rest, we can say that, at least from what we have seen, it was a Friday like so many others this season. Fernando had no problems and is reasonably pleased with the handling of his car on a first flying lap while there is probably still some work to do on a longer run, especially as at this track the tyres seem to suffer with higher degradation than we are used to seeing at other venues. Felipe had a problem with the fuel injection system, which meant he was unable to finish his programme, but the consequent lack of some data that he might have gathered does not constitute a serious handicap to the rest of his weekend’s preparation. We must try and up our performance level still further, especially as regards qualifying, which will be the crucial stage of this weekend. We have all the elements we need to make our choices.”

Renault

Robert Kubica: It was an unusual start to first practice today with a damp track, but once it had dried out, the situation was similar to what we found last year: the track evolution was huge, and the tyre degradation was pretty high, too, which made it hard to do much consistent running because the circuit was getting better as the tyres got worse. It’s tricky to find a nice balance on the car here, because the off-camber corners are frustrating to drive and the high rear degradation means the car oversteers quite a lot. As usual, tomorrow will be a challenging day, too: we will complete final practice in daylight, before qualifying at dusk, and we will have to anticipate the change in track temperature and how it affects the car.

Vitaly Petrov: The circuit was very dirty during first practice, and the tyre performance dropped off very quickly because of that, making the car difficult to drive. We made some good improvements between the sessions, particularly with the brakes, and it felt much better – plus the circuit cleaned up and grip levels improved. In the end, we got more laps done than we had planned, which will give us a good amount of data to try and improve further tomorrow.

Technical Debrief with Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer

What was your assessment of the day?

It was a very normal Friday for us, with no dramas. We worked through our usual programme of setting the car up in first practice, then doing tyre evaluation and high-fuel runs in the second session.

How do you cope with the transition from daylight to night-time conditions?

It’s an odd situation because it’s the opposite to what we see at other circuits – the track temperatures drop for second practice, rather than rising. The temperatures were around nine degrees cooler in the second session, which gives much more overall grip, so you have to be careful to anticipate this with any set-up changes you make to the car.

How are the two types of tyre performing?

They look pretty good. As we anticipated, the degradation on the option looks pretty high, but this situation will improve as more rubber goes down. We didn’t have any warm-up problems with either tyre.

What will you be trying to improve overnight?

This is a circuit where you need to protect the rear tyres – but if go too much in this direction with the set-up, and make the car too comfortable to drive, then it costs you lap time. We were reasonably happy with the car balance today, but we will be working to improve further tomorrow to find the right compromise between qualifying and the race

Force India Mercedes

The final round of the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship got underway today at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Unusually for this desert-fronted country, rain fell in the mid morning, leaving the 5.554km track wet and very slippery. As a result the Force India F1 Team condensed most of its work into the dry ‘afternoon’ session, run in the twilight under the circuit’s state-of-the-art light system. The team completed a very solid day of work as it seeks to end the season with its highest-ever championship position, with Tonio sealing the 9th quickest time of the practice and Adrian the 13th.

Adrian Sutil: In the morning we didn’t do much running early on as the track was very slippery. The surface was still damp and the lack of rubber made it pretty difficult to do any meaningful work. When we did go out the first run went OK but for the second the tyres had already grained up and I started to have some problems with the brakes. Unfortunately they then came back in the afternoon and stayed for the whole session. We tried to solve the issue but every time I went out the car was pulling to one side under braking and was very inconsistent. At the moment we are looking into why this has happened and I’m sure we’ll sort it out for qualifying. I did at least have a good run on the soft tyre. We can always improve but at least we know there is more to come from us tomorrow.

Tonio Liuzzi: This morning was a bit unusual - clouds over Abu Dhabi isn’t something I’ve really seen before! The morning was OK, we tested some settings with the switchable rear wing, some of which worked and others that didn’t, but in the afternoon it was pretty good. We got on top of the SRW and could concentrate on getting through our programme. The balance was pretty good, and at the end of the day we’re not that far from where we wanted to be set-up wise. We got a good understanding of the supersoft and medium tyres and tried some different engine tuning and mapping work. We can be pretty proud of the step we made. The balance is good and we are in a strong position compared to the other teams.

Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer: Today’s programme involved some tests to understand the SRW and best wing level for this circuit, with an evaluation of a couple of developments of the blown diffuser in the afternoon session. The usual tyre comparisons were also carried out, with some useful data gathered. Tonio had quite a good day, but Adrian struggled with some brake glazing which we need to sort out. Otherwise I think that although things are close, we seem a little more competitive than Brazil and we will be aiming to qualify as well as possible as we know overtaking can be quite difficult here come the race.

Mercedes GP

The Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi hosts the final race this weekend as the 2010 season comes to a close. With the race held in twilight conditions with a 17:00hrs start time, today’s practice sessions began in the early and late afternoon with the floodlights coming on around the circuit as darkness set in during the second session.

Nico and Michael worked on the set-up of their respective cars with both drivers making good progress over the course of the day and completing 48 laps each, with Nico finishing in 10th place and Michael in eleventh position.

Nico Rosberg: “We made some good progress today and are definitely going the right way with the set-up. It took some time and a few steps in different directions to find the improvements, and whilst there are some issues that we need to solve, overall it is looking ok. My F-duct wasn’t working properly today which wasn’t ideal but we will fix that overnight ready for the weekend.”

Michael Schumacher: “It is quite interesting to drive in the day/night conditions here and it makes this track special and the event fun. The track itself was not too complicated to learn so all in all, it was okay today. We did not really face any special issues so I really look forward to tomorrow’s qualifying when I will try to get a good lap together to make it as far up on the grid as possible.”

Ross Brawn: “We have had a reasonable start to the weekend here in Abu Dhabi with both Nico and Michael finding a good set-up direction by the end of the second session this evening. We achieved some interesting evaluations today which should stand us in good stead to have a positive final race weekend of the season here.”

Norbert Haug: “Our lap times in race conditions did not look too bad at the end of the session. As at the last few races, we will try to get the best possible places on the grid behind the quicker cars and then aim to improve during the race. Of course, it is our ambition to finish this long season with the best results possible and our guys are fully motivated to achieve that target.”