McLAREN - USGP - Friday Notes

2019 United States Grand Prix — free practice  

Carlos Sainz #55

FP1 1m35.723s (+1.666s) 26 laps 12th

FP2 1m34.667s (+1.435s) 34 laps 8th

“It’s been a bit of a different Friday, having next season’s tyre compounds available. Unfortunately, my first impression of these tyres wasn’t very positive. I felt we were probably struggling a bit more this weekend to find the right balance in the car.

“It took us a few more runs to find a better compromise, but by the end of the day, we more or less managed to find a decent baseline. However, this weekend looks extremely tight and I expect a tense fight to get into the top 10. It looks challenging but we’ll make sure we work hard to maximise our options.”

  Lando Norris #4

FP1 1m36.263s (+2.206s) 23 laps 18th

FP2 1m35.025s (+1.793s) 30 laps 14th

“A tricky day with all the bumps which are worse than last year, making it easy to snatch a front wheel and have a small lock-up. But after today, we have a direction to push in for tomorrow.

“We’re there or thereabouts on pace, but it’s very close. So, it’s going to be more about putting the lap together and seeing how we get on, but we’ve got a bit of work to do.”

Andrea Stella
Performance Director

“Today was busy. In addition to the normal programme to work on car set-up and tyres, we had experimental 2020 tyres to evaluate and also some specific tests we wanted to perform in preparation for next year. Overall, the sessions went as planned with no delays and no problems, and we’re very happy with our work today.

“Based on Friday running, it looks like being another weekend in which the midfield is very compact. Our aim is to get into Q3 tomorrow and score points on Sunday. To do that we’ll have to extract the absolute maximum from the car.”