Brendan Lines November 14, 2020

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has again topped practice for FP2 of the Turkish Grand Prix, while Mercedes recovered to P3 and P4, the Silver Arrows are still some six tenths off Red Bull’s pace.

Throughout the field there is likely to be further re-shuffling as teams come to terms with the ‘icy’ and cold conditions at Istanbul Park, Local Goals put on our skates to catch up with the teams in pit lane after FP2, here’s what they had to say about the weekend so far.

Red Bull

Max Verstappen

“I hope it’s not going to rain because then we may actually need spikes! I don’t think softer tyres would have made a difference, we did go faster when going from a hard to a soft but it’s just the grip on the tarmac. For sure Mercedes will get it together tomorrow so now I just hope we can have a competitive qualifying and in the race we will see what happens.”

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton:

“None of the tyres were really working for us and it felt like driving on an ice rink out there. So, you don’t really get the enjoyment of the lap that you would normally get around here in Istanbul. When you’re way below the temperature window, the tyres just don’t work. You can go from one lap to another and find a second just because the tyres work a little bit better in one of the corners.”

Valtteri Bottas

“When I first went out on track this morning it felt more like rallying, it was quite far away from the normal driving standards that we’re used to in Formula One. But I had fun playing around on track, experimenting with the car, it was actually quite enjoyable.”

Renault

Daniel Ricciardo

“There was just no grip in the session this morning and even as the track rubbered in slightly towards the afternoon, we weren’t as quick as we’d hoped. I was not able to feel the grip on such a good circuit, which is a bit frustrating.”

Esteban Ocon

“I’d probably compare it to what it feels like driving on Intermediates, only that we were on slick tyres. It was new territory, and this is why we still have stuff to learn.”

Alpha Tauri

Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer)

“The track was damp at the start of FP1 as the circuit had been cleaned, and even when it dried the lap times for everyone were slower than we would have expected on an intermediate tyre. The balance was a mixture of everything, which made it hard to learn much about the car in that session.”

Alfa Romeo

Antonio Giovinazzi

“The track looks really nice but the conditions were so, so slippery. It was very difficult to put it all together, it was probably the worst I felt in a Formula One car today – but at least it was the same for everyone.”

“These conditions can be an opportunity for us, everything can happen: we will need to be sharp and put a good lap together in qualifying.”

Williams

Nicholas Latifi

“It was very tricky out there with very unique track conditions. I have always wondered what it is like to drive a Formula One car on ice, and I didn’t have to go to Finland to find that out! Overall, it was a pretty fun day, there was not a lap that didn’t feel like you had to constantly work.”

George Russell

“The amount of [steering] snaps in Turn Eight is a joke!”

Haas

Kevin Magnussen

“It’s probably going to be a very slippery race this weekend, especially with no support series here – it could be chaotic, especially when you go off-line to overtake. Some corners, like turn 12, if you lock up a little bit and you miss the apex by a few meters – you’re just driving on ice. You have to be very precise.”

Guenther Steiner, Team Principal

“The tires, as Pirelli have said, they were not planned for such a cold event. We just need to get a grip of it, we need to use tomorrow what we’ve learned today. The prediction is rain for tomorrow – that will make it even more challenging. As we say though, challenges are opportunities. I hope we can take them.”