WHAT WE LEARNED FROM FP1 AND
FP2
* Qualifying has been postponed to Sunday morning at 10:00am to try and
avoid the effects of an incoming typhoon. All track activity on Saturday is
cancelled: if for any reason qualifying can’t take place, the * FP2 times
are likely to be used to set the grid as FP3 has also been scrubbed.
* Mercedes has been fastest in both sessions held today, using both the
medium and soft tyres. With no FP3 and weather conditions uncertain, teams
focussed on both race and qualifying preparations, using the * Red soft and
Yellow medium tyres almost exclusively. This meant that the normal Friday
programmes were slightly compromised, with teams putting in qualifying
banker laps as well as long runs.
* The fastest FP2 time (from Valtteri Bottas) was set on soft tyres and was
more than half a second faster than the equivalent time from last year: very
close to the 2018 pole.
* Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was the next-fastest car in FP2, having shown
plenty of pace straight out of the box to end up third-fastest and best of
the rest.
* Weather conditions are still looking uncertain for Sunday, with strong
winds as well as rain quite likely. Today, conditions stayed dry, with
ambient temperatures during FP2 of around 29 degrees and track temperatures
of 33 degrees.
* So far, we see a performance gap of around 0.6 to 0.7 seconds between the
soft and medium, with 0.8 to 0.9 seconds between medium and hard. The
hardest possible nomination has been made to cope with the corners at
Suzuka: C1, C2 and C3.
MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“The postponement of qualifying and cancellation of FP3, which was
absolutely the right decision under the circumstances, affected the run
plans for free practice. Teams not only had to ensure a banker lap, just in
case the FP2 times are used to set the grid, but also had to prepare for the
race. Despite that, it’s very hard to know exactly what the race conditions
will be on Sunday, and how useful today’s running will have turned out to
be. The performance gap between the different compounds is not quite as
relevant as usual: the hard compound has not been used much today, while the
comparison between the soft and medium tyres was very much influenced by
track evolution during FP1, as well as by teams using the soft at the end of
FP2 to set a time that could form the grid, should qualifying not be held on
Sunday morning. There’s obviously now a big air of unpredictability about
the whole weekend, which will hopefully lead to an exciting race.” |
FREE PRACTICE 1 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER TIME COMPOUND
Bottas 1m28.731s SOFT C3 NEW
Hamilton 1m28.807s SOFT C3 NEW
Vettel 1m29.720s SOFT C3 NEW
FREE PRACTICE 2 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER TIME COMPOUND
Bottas 1m27.785s SOFT C3 NEW
Hamilton 1m27.885s SOFT C3 NEW
Verstappen 1m28.066s SOFT C3 NEW
FP1 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND DRIVER TIME
HARD C1 Stroll 1m35.046s
MEDIUM C2 Bottas 1m30.524s
SOFT C3 Bottas 1m28.731s
FP2 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND DRIVER TIME
HARD C1 Hulkenberg 1m35.357s
MEDIUM C2 Leclerc 1m28.709s
SOFT C3 Bottas 1m27.785s
MOST LAPS BY COMPOUND SO FAR
COMPOUND DRIVER LAPS
HARD C1 Russell 13
MEDIUM C2 Kvyat, Vettel 22
SOFT C3 Gasly 21
TYRE STATISTICS OF THE DAY
HARD MEDIUM SOFT
Kms driven* 267 1829 4291
Sets used overall** 4 31 83
The above number gives the total amount of kilometres
driven in FP1 and FP2 today, all drivers combined.
** Per compound, all drivers combined.
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