Practice report
Formula 1 United States GP
US GP: Top 10 quotes after FP2
Nico Rosberg then set the fastest time of the day in the afternoon session with a 1:37:358
Edited: Oct 21, 2016, 11:58 PM
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Nico Rosberg Mercedes Mercedes 33 1'37.358 "The running of the car was different between P1 and P2 because of the temperature; it was very cold when we ran this morning. The weather also had a bearing on the balance of the car as it altered as a consequence of the changing wind direction around the track. It should be different tomorrow because the weather is going to change again, as it does frequently here in Austin, and it means what we learn today might not necessarily help us for Saturday." 2 
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull TAG 33 1'37.552 0.194 0.194 “I’m happy with today. This morning was solid and the long run pace was good. We made a few changes in between the two sessions and look pretty good for now so hopefully we’ll stay like that. On our long run pace we look like we’re able to match Mercedes, possibly quicker, so if we get the pace we had today against Mercedes on Sunday it’s going to be a fun race. It is only Friday though so let’s see what they’re doing tomorrow but it’s nice to start the weekend on the right foot. I don’t think we’ve got hours and hours of work ahead of us. Just a little bit of fine tuning as always but we don’t have to search for too much at the moment.” 3 
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Mercedes 32 1'37.649 0.291 0.097 "This circuit remains special for me as I won my third World Championship here last year. It's great to see so many fans enjoying F1 in the US and coming out to show their support. On track it's been a great day for reliability and getting our programme done. Given the wet weather conditions here last year and the lack of reference points for each tyre compound Nico and I had to cover as much ground as possible to help with our understanding. We've still got to go away and analyse the data overnight to make sure we're ready for P3 and qualifying tomorrow." 4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari Ferrari 35 1'38.178 0.820 0.529 “To be fair, It was a tough day. This morning we had some problems with a little wing that failed and came off, so we lost some track time, which was a bit "costy" for the afternoon because we couldn't re-balance the car. We are a bit on the backfoot today and I am not entirely happy with the car balance yet; it is a little bit too nervous, but I think for tomorrow we can improve. On Friday usually you don't see the full picture, so hopefully tomorrow we will be a lot stronger. Today the Red Bulls were very quick, there is no doubt, but I still think we have a chance. It's Friday and I wouldn't worry too much. You never know what the others are doing, we knew about ourselves, but we didn't have the best day. For sure it will be very close with them and it will be difficult to match them tomorrow with the speed that they showed today, but I think the Ferrari you saw today is not the Ferrari you will see tomorrow.” 5 
Max Verstappen Red Bull TAG 27 1'38.258 0.900 0.080 “We tried some different setups from FP1 and FP2 to try and find a strong feeling with the car. In the end we found a good one for the long runs on soft tyres but we still need to improve the short run pace. I’m quite confident we can do that tomorrow. We got some good data from the short runs but struggled to find a clean lap. We changed the setup during FP2 in order to improve some issues, which is why my car was worked on for a while. The supersoft seemed to lose grip every lap and get slower, so I think for the race it will be interesting. The long run pace seemed good, I had a Ferrari in front of me and I was catching it so I think that is a positive sign.” 6 Nico Hulkenberg Force India Mercedes 32 1'38.508 1.150 0.250 “It was a straightforward Friday - the way you want to start a weekend, really. We didn’t have any major issues with the car and we were able to do a good amount of mileage. We tried a few different things with our set-up this afternoon, so the job tonight is to try and understand the best direction to take going forward. I am reasonably happy with the balance of the car, but I know we can make some improvements tonight. So we’re in a good place to start and I am optimistic for tomorrow and Sunday.” 7 
Sergio Perez Force India Mercedes 31 1'38.568 1.210 0.060 “I was only in the car this afternoon, but I got up to speed very quickly and I am quite happy with my laps – I think we’re in a promising position. The car feels okay and I think we found the set-up window quite early. Nico tried a different approach to me and it should have helped the team get all the information we need to make a good decision for tomorrow.” 8 Jenson Button McLaren Honda 29 1'38.713 1.355 0.145 “Today wasn’t too bad. I really enjoy driving around here but there’s definitely still some more work to do. This track is always tough on tyres as there’s high degradation, but it’s the same for all of us, so I think we’ll be okay. The mid- and high-speed corners are always a challenge for us and the long Turn 17 is tough, especially on tyre wear. A few cars have been hitting the orange kerb in Turns Three, Four and Five, and it’s been breaking off parts of the floor, but luckily we haven’t had any issues on our car. When we bring a Supersoft compound to a circuit where we’re not used to running it, there’s degradation, but it’s pretty normal and we haven’t found it too bad. There’s degradation on all the compounds - even the Medium tyre overheats pretty quickly and isn’t as consistent as you would like it – so this circuit is definitely tough on tyres, but that’s part of what makes it interesting,” 9 
Fernando Alonso McLaren Honda 30 1'38.801 1.443 0.088 “It was a good day in the office. We completed our programme and were able to put a good number of laps under our belt, which was very helpful. In the second session we also tried the different compounds and we will need to choose carefully, because the Supersoft seems to have quite a lot of degradation, as we expected. We’ll make our decision once we have gone through all the data we gathered today. We tested several items, aero parts and mechanical settings, and some things went better in FP1 and some in FP2, so we have some work ahead of us to be ready for tomorrow.” 10 
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari Ferrari 31 1'38.865 1.507 0.064 “It was a tricky day: in the first session, we struggled to find the right set up, and in the second practice I went off with new tires and couldn't set a lap time. Apart from that it was a normal Friday, it looks worse than it is. We did a normal set up work and sometimes it goes like this. We did not have any major issue, we just tried to make a sense out of it and get the car exactly where we wanted. Now we have some work to do on the set up and make it correct for tomorrow. The Mercedes look very strong as they have been all year, but we'll do our best.”
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