haas
Haas had a quiet opening session, opting not to use the softs and therefore found himself relatively low in the order. In the afternoon session, both made progress, but not as much as they would have hoped. Will they do well here? Hulkenberg’s qualifying has been top-notch this year, but they might need something special from the German tomorrow if they want to get involved at a track where the top five teams look competitive.
Nico Hülkenberg – FP1: 1:13.576, P16; FP2: 1:12.569, P15
“It’s something extraordinary: during the first laps you are stunned by how impressive it is, how fast, how dynamic and how challenging it is. It’s already Friday at the stock market, I think it was a good day, there were no problems on our part. Performance-wise, it didn’t look too good where we are, but all margins are good, so we need to squeeze a little more in overnight for tomorrow. In the picture we have today, we are a little out of the top 10 at the moment, but we don’t feel too bad from a balance point of view. It just lacks grip in some areas, so we’ll see what we can do.”
Kevin Magnussen – FP1: 1:13.390, P14; FP2: 1:12.473, P13
“It’s incredibly tight as always, I say that all the time, and this race is all about qualifying, so it’s very important that we do things right tomorrow. The car has a good rear end, the big rear wing is important here, but everyone came to Monaco with an extra high downforce wing. You’re just finding time back all the time; The track is very bumpy and it is much more intimidating to drive through here. It takes bravery to get everything out of this and I don’t think anyone has done it yet. It is very easy to go over the limit and it is very expensive. “I would love a bit more pace of course, but we will see what we can do.”
Ayao Komatsu, team manager
“I think it’s been pretty similar to what we expected so far. I think overall, in terms of the package we have for Monaco, it is doing what it is supposed to do, but as I said earlier in the week, we just need to find a little more balance in our car to be able to extract performance. We understand our long-term pace so I’m not too worried, but of course qualifying is everything here so we need to find a slightly better balance.”