Styrian GP: Post-Friday practice comments from Vettel and Stroll

Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll off to a good start to their Styrian GP weekend with a very good Friday Practice sessions for Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One™ Team.

Sebastian Vettel finished morning session in P14 with a fastest lap of 1:06.708, +0.798s shy of session leader Max Verstappen’s time. The German managed to complete 32 laps.

Vettel’s teammate Lance managed to bring back his AMR21 in P8 with a fastest lap of 1:06.584, +0.674s shy of session leader time. The Canadian managed to complete 33 laps in the morning session.

In the Afternoon session both drivers managed to improve their morning times. Vettel posted sixth fastest time with a 1:05.934 lap, +0.522s shy of Verstappen’s P1 time. Seb managed to complete 38 laps with more focus on long run pace.

Lance Stroll managed to finish in P8 like he did in the morning session, The Canadian posted a fastest time of 1:06.079, +0.667s shy of Max’s time and he managed to complete 36 laps.

Sebastian Vettel

“I think we have made a decent start to the weekend. Our pace over one lap is looking encouraging and I think we can squeeze out more from the longer runs.

We have a good idea of where we can make those improvements, which is the important thing. Racing in the mountains means it can be really tricky to predict the weather, so it is going to be about making sure we are on the right tyres at the right time and reacting well to the conditions.

We have not had much wet running this year, so it would be good to experience the car in the rain.”

Lance Stroll

“The car felt good from the first lap and both sessions were positive for us. We know where we can make some improvements, such as the balance in the low-speed corners, so we will go away tonight and review the data to see where we can find some further improvements.

There has been a lot of talk about rain, but it only slightly drizzled at times today, so it was not really a factor. I love driving in wet conditions and it always mixes up the field – so I will not complain if we get some rain tomorrow or Sunday.”