Fascinating Friday in Brazil

• It was yet another fascinating day of practice, as has been the case in recent races, with several teams at the front all looking in the mix across both single lap and long run work.

• Kimi ultimately topped the lower fuel times in FP2, having been second quickest in FP1, with George not far away in P4.

• The Brit sat in a gaggle of cars a few tenths adrift of Kimi but that will likely close up tomorrow as the picture is set to change once again with much warmer temperatures forecast and a threat of rain too.

• The long run picture was equally interesting with all three compounds being used across the various front-running cars.

• Both Kimi and George opted for the Soft tyre and looked competitive compared to others on the red-walled tyre; Verstappen’s Red Bull looked a stand-out on the Medium with the McLaren of Norris strong on the Hard.

• Given the differences between the compounds and the likelihood of changing conditions later on Saturday and Sunday, it is all set up for another interesting weekend ahead.

Kimi Antonelli

It was a positive day overall and I felt good in the car, particularly on the single lap runs. The conditions were quite tricky with the low grip, and it wasn’t easy to find the right balance, but I think we made some good progress between FP1 and FP2. There is still more to improve with both the car and my driving, so we’ll work through everything tonight and see what we can find for tomorrow.

It looks very close at the front. McLaren and Red Bull look strong, and we know Ferrari can often find something extra when we get to qualifying, so I expect it to be a really tight fight. The weather could also play a part. It’s very difficult to predict at the moment, so we need to be ready for anything and react quickly if the conditions change.

After the highs of Mexico, I’m just focusing on each session as it comes this weekend but I am enjoying things so far. Hopefully we can take another step tomorrow and put ourselves in a good position for qualifying and continue that feeling.

George Russell

Overall, it was a solid Friday. We look to be in the mix, although it’s very close between several teams at the front. The long run pace felt stronger than our single-lap performance on my side, so there are definitely areas we can work on overnight to try and find a bit more ahead of Qualifying. The car wasn't perfect and we've got some understeer to dial out; there’s still some performance to find if we want to be fighting right at the front tomorrow.

The conditions are likely to change across the weekend, so what we saw today won’t necessarily be fully representative of what we face tomorrow and Sunday. It looks like we’re in for another really close fight and small margins are going to make a difference.

Obviously, the five-place grid penalty we have makes our task a little more difficult. It puts even more emphasis on having a strong qualifying and putting the car as high up the grid as possible before the penalty is applied. If we can do that, then I’m confident we can still put ourselves in a position to move forward and challenge near the front on Sunday.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

This has been one of our better Fridays recently from a pace point of view, although there is still plenty of scope to improve the balance. FP1 was interesting as Kimi looked very comfortable on the single lap but struggled a little more on the long run, whereas George was very strong on the long run but didn’t quite get the single lap together. That gave us some useful data ahead of the afternoon and we were able to take the best elements from each set-up into FP2.

The second session ran smoothly and, overall, we look to have decent pace on both the single lap and long run. There is still work to do though, and both drivers are finding the cars difficult in certain areas. Brake locking is one of those and has been a bit of a theme for us over the past few races. We’d also like to find a better compromise between rear grip through the high-speed corners and giving the drivers the strong front end they need in the slower sections. Whilst the pace is encouraging then, we’ve still got plenty to work on overnight. If we can make the cars a little easier for the drivers to work with and tidy up those areas of balance, hopefully we can take another step forward tomorrow.

FP1 Results

FP2 Results