Hungaroring Friday driver quotes after free practices

HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX HUNGARORING




Red Bull Racing


Sebastian Vettel


“I felt a little bit better in the car, but it’s not like last year, it seems very tight and McLaren and Ferrari are quick. I think we need to raise our game if we want to be at the front. I am not sure if KERS and DRS will have such a big effect this weekend, but I think the new tyres will be a major factor.


I’ve just stepped out of the car, so haven’t seen what the others did – I think they will be the most important thing to look out for, in terms of managing the tyres for one lap, but equally for getting the most out of them for a whole stint. It will be a tough one. The bandage on my hand? It’s just a little thing, but you know how it goes with us men, we like to make a big fuss!”



Mark Webber


“I made a mistake this morning when I got on the damp kerb. I’ve seen a few of those over the last few years, but drivers still don’t learn - we still go out there and push! I clipped the ‘turf and hit the barrier, but fortunately only the front wing was damaged. We recovered pretty well this afternoon and got a lot of mileage in.


The car ran well and we have lots of info to go through tonight. The tricky thing is the tyres. Ferrari and McLaren are certainly performing well, as they have done at the last few races - it’s no big surprise that they are doing decent lap times and it’s a race between all of us.”




Vodafone McLaren Mercedes


Jenson Button


“A trouble-free day, which is nice. We managed a lot of good runs and did a lot of useful setup work, so it was a good day. I’m very happy with the direction we’ve taken with the car. We’re strong in the first and last sectors. I’m quickest in the first sector and Lewis is fastest in the last.


If we can put it all together, we’ll be looking pretty good. I enjoy driving at the Hungaroring. With a few more set-up tweaks, I think we can be competitive. I hope to challenge for victory, but I’m not the only driver thinking that. Ferrari and Red Bull will also be looking to have good weekends, but that’s great for Formula 1.”


Lewis Hamilton


“It’s a great feeling to start the weekend on a high. We had a much smoother Friday here than we did at the Nurburgring, so I’m pretty happy. The car looks reasonably competitive, given the balance and the fuel load that we had. It’s important not to read too much into Fridays, though. The track may be different tomorrow, as may the temperatures.


Having said that, I think we’ve probably got about the same pace as we had in Germany, which is encouraging. The guys have been pushing very, very hard back at the factory. We’ve got a couple of upgrades here this weekend and it’s a great achievement by everyone to have got them here in such a short space of time.”




Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro


Fernando Alonso


“First of all thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes on my thirtieth, especially to Bernie, who came along to wish me the best along with you journalists during the press meeting! It’s nice to celebrate here with Ferrari, a team I will definitely be with at least until I am thirty five…


We finished the planned work programme and that’s always a positive start to a race weekend. Now we will analyse all the data gathered and make the best choices for qualifying and the race. I am pleased I was able to do so much running, especially from the point of view of studying the tyre degradation, which at this track is always a significant factor.


The track is still very dirty, as is the norm for a Friday at the Hungaroring: however, we know it will improve each day and by Sunday afternoon, it will be much more rubbered in than today. We saw that McLaren looks very strong, as indeed it was last weekend. Now we must try and improve the car, especially in the third sector of the track, where we seem to be suffering more than most.”



Felipe Massa

“We got through a lot of work, especially in terms of comparing the two Pirelli tyres. The first signs are that degradation is significant, both on the Prime and the Option, which will be a decisive factor when it comes to strategy. I think we will witness a very close contest between the usual three teams, Red Bull, McLaren and ourselves.


It will be not be easy to get a useful grid position, but it will be very important to do so, because I think that, despite everything, overtaking at this track will still be very difficult. I was not able to do a quick time on my first lap with the Super Soft, because I ran wide at Turn 9, so today’s lap time is not totally representative of the potential at my disposal: the tyres degrade easily so you have to give it your best immediately.


I told Fernando this morning, “you are getting old like me!” Joking apart, it’s an important day for him, so he gets all my best wishes again!”



Mercedes GP Petronas Formula One Team


Michael Schumacher


“Coming to the second race of a back-to-back series means that you are not able to do a great deal to the car between the two weekends so the practice sessions today went pretty much according to our expectations.


We do have the developments from the last couple of races to work with but they obviously do not mean we can make up some positions. We will certainly try to make the best of what we have in our hands for qualifying tomorrow and the race on Sunday.”


Nico Rosberg


“This circuit is really challenging, and it's very satisfying when you get your laps together cleanly around here. We had two decent sessions and the short and the long runs on the super softs were reasonable. However there is still a lot of work to do to improve our package for qualifying and look at how to manage the tyre degradation.


 It's interesting to see how the top six positions are changing from race to race, and we'll keep pushing to get even closer to, and maybe into, that group.”




Lotus Renault GP

Nick Heidfeld

"As I only drove in the second session, we tried to make full use of this time and we made good progress with the car. We initially had a lot of oversteer but we made changes which rectified this. We’re heading in the right direction but there is still time to be found from the set-up. The grip level from the circuit seems quite low and there is quite a big difference between the tyres, so tomorrow will be interesting."


Vitaly Petrov


"We had some difficulties with the car, because the floor and rear wing were not performing efficiently. As a result, we lost some time and a chance to do more running, as we spent a lot of time fixing the problem. This was also the reason for the lack of grip we experienced out there.


We also struggled to get sufficient temperature into the soft tyres. That said, we managed some good track time and completed quite a few laps, and we’ll now look ahead to tomorrow to improve on this and give us a good shot come Sunday."




AT&T Williams


Rubens Barrichello

“We tested a lot of things today. We had to run without KERS in the morning session because of a small problem but we reinstated it for the afternoon and it was fine. The car has improved a little bit, but P13 isn’t where we want to be and it’s going to be tough to break into Q3 tomorrow. Our goal today was to focus on set-up for the race as I think points are achievable here.”


Pastor Maldonado


“We brought new parts to Hungary which we spent today testing. I was trying out a new cooling system and I have an updated rear wing coming tomorrow that was working well on the other car. I’ll be working hard tonight with my engineers to improve the car. We’ve got plenty to do in order to have a good race.”




Force India Formula One Team


Adrian Sutil


“A fairly normal Friday for me and we did most of the things on the job list. I was struggling for grip a bit today, especially at the start of the session and I was having to fight the car. But I think most of that was due to the fact that the track was quite green today.


We know it always gets better with each session so I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. In the afternoon the longs runs went well and gave us plenty of information on the soft and supersofts for the race.”


Paul Di Resta


“The morning was quite positive and we completed the programme and managed to learn a bit more about the package we ran at the Nurburgring last weekend. That set us up quite nicely for the afternoon when we did the usual performance runs and long runs to get data on the two tyres.


It was good to get 40 laps in during the second session and it helped get me up to speed with the track, which is still quite new for me. The circuit was very green to begin with and tyre wear was high, but it was still consistent and improved quite a bit by the end of the day.”



Sauber F1 Team


Sergio Pérez


“I think we have a better pace here than we had recently at the Nürburgring, and I also believe the ambient temperatures, which are supposed to get higher, will help us to do a better qualifying as it is crucial to get the super-soft tyres to work then.


On the long runs I had degradation with both compounds, but with the soft the balance was better compared to the super-soft. For me the soft tyres were also more consistent than the super-soft. I believe it will become quite an interesting weekend for all of us in regard to the tyres.”


Kamui Kobayashi


“Although we look better than we did at the Nürburgring, I have the feeling it will be tough to catch the Force India cars, but we want to get in front of them in tomorrow’s qualifying. The balance of my car is not really brilliant yet, but I think we can improve that. For me the soft tyre is the difficult one up to now, so I prefer the super-soft.”

Scuderia Toro Rosso


Jaime Alguersuari


“It was a busy day, in which I did a lot of laps, especially in the morning, when I completed the most of any driver. We concentrated on car set-up for the race, looking at solutions to improve its pace. It is not so clear where we stand just yet, although I think we can expect qualifying to be tough again, while in the race we can be better.


 I tried both types of tyre, but I do not feel I have a clear picture of the different qualities of the two of them. I think on Sunday, the behaviour of the Supersoft will be one of the key elements that decides what sort of race we can have.”


Sebastien Buemi


“We ran a different strategy to normal in terms of our work programme, running the Supersoft tyre right from the morning session. I was not very happy with the handling of the car at first and, during the day we made some quite drastic changes to the set-up. Towards the end of the afternoon, I was getting near the limit, so I think the next step is to go back very slightly on these set-up changes to do better tomorrow.


In terms of performance, I would say we are in a similar position to where we were at the last two races, which means we lack a little bit of pace. It was good that the track conditions did not seem to change much over the day, which will make it easier for us to analyse the data we have gathered.”

Team Lotus


Heikki Kovalainen


“It feels like we have taken a step forward with the updates we’ve brought to the back end of the car but I still need to work on finding a balance I’m happy with. We tried a few different setup options today but I couldn’t really find the best solution on either compounds, but we’ve completed a lot of mileage so I’m sure we’ll find the right way forward tomorrow. "



Jarno Trulli


"I’m very happy today. I want to thank the whole team, everyone at the factory and in the race team because they have all been patient with me and have worked hard to give me the new power steering system and a car that I can really feel.


As soon as I pulled out this morning it felt so much better than before so today I’ve been able to start rebuilding my confidence in the car, and working on all the little changes and improvements that help me to find a setup I can really work with. It’s been a really positive day and for that my thanks go to everyone in the team. "



Hispania Racing F1 Team


Daniel Ricciardo


“It was ok this morning, I was just feeling my way into it. There was a bit to learn for myself but also the car was not to my liking so it was a combination of me getting into it and finding a good balance between the car and myself. We went a step closer this afternoon with that but not enough. We can improve with the prime tyre.

As for the option, it was my first time on super-softs and I liked the amount of grip you get from them. The balance is a bit closer to what we need but we still have some work to do with the primes, we’ll try and solve it for tomorrow.”


Vitantonio Liuzzi


“In the morning I was very happy with the car, which was responding really well. We had good pace and understood a few things about the setup. Then we changed a few things for the afternoon but it didn’t work, so we put everything back to how it was.


However the car wasn’t reacting like in the morning. We had some problems with the rear end which caused over steering. Now we have to understand why this occurred and work hard to try and get things right for tomorrow.”



Marussia Virgin Racing

Timo Glock

“This morning was all about aero runs, which is always useful as we are able to collect plenty of data. In the afternoon we worked on the set-up and on some ideas for tomorrow. The main issue at the moment is the tyres, as they are proving to be quite difficult to handle this week, so we will have to have a good look before tomorrow.”


Jérôme D’Ambrosio

“It was a pretty good Friday today. We had some useful testing this afternoon and it was good that we didn't see any of the rain that we were expecting. This morning we didn't really work on set-up and instead I concentrated on collecting aero data, but this afternoon we had a good programme and we'll have a lot of data to go through tonight. Overall it was a good day so let's see what tomorrow brings



- Liam Clogger -