Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical) There was a great deal of anticipation going into today, as we eagerly awaited the chance to try out a long-standing circuit with all-new tarmac, all-new kerbs and the SuperSoft compound in use for the first time at this venue. We had a good session in FP1, with both tyre compounds working even better than expected and no issues to report. Unfortunately, early in FP2 Lewis was caught out by one of the new, unpainted kerbs on the entry to T11, resulting in quite a heavy impact with the barriers. This ruled him out of the remainder of the session as the crew assessed the damage to his car. The most important thing is that Lewis was unharmed despite the impact. These cars are very stiff and very strong in a pure lateral load, so he went to the medical centre for assessment after a high G-Force reading from the accident data recorder – but luckily the tyre barrier took most of the energy out of the impact. There has been some damage to suspension and a few bodywork elements – but this will be easily fixed overnight. With Nico, we managed to complete a full programme – including some good long runs – so fortunately we have all the data we need heading into the weekend despite the setback for Lewis. We now look forward to a good competition tomorrow.