Brendon Hartley has finished sixth fastest in the second practice session for the US Grand Pix at Austin Texas today. Hartley sat out the first session while Sean Gelael tested his car.
“I missed today’s morning session but I got some wet running in the afternoon and everything went pretty smoothly,” commented Hartley. “I had the same issues as they had this morning, but the other car looked really exciting in terms of performance with the new engine and new aero package. I had the old aero package today, but if Pierre’s performance is anything to go by, it looks quite promising for the future.”
His team mate Pierre Gasly finished 13th and second in the two sessions.
“It was a positive day today,” said Gasly. “In the morning we struggled a bit to make the Intermediate tyres work properly, but then we made some changes for FP2 and they seem to work much better. This afternoon I felt very good with the car and I really enjoyed driving in the wet conditions, especially on this amazing track, which in the rain is super exciting!
“Even if we didn’t run much, I really liked the general feeling and the performance was there. Although not everybody went out, it’s always nice to see us so high on the time sheet. Considering the penalty we will receive, which will see us start from the back, we now have to focus on having the fastest possible car for Sunday’s race.”
“We had a big test programme across the two cars; we planned to introduce a new aero package on Pierre’s car, but given the tricky conditions in the first session we elected not to run it,” said Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer). “This meant we didn’t get to do the test items we planned, so we focussed more on understanding how to operate the car at its best in the Intermediate conditions.
“It was still wet heading into FP2, but we wanted to learn about the new aero package so we fitted that to Pierre’s car. Unfortunately, we couldn’t carry out the intended rake work because it’s tricky to judge an aero package in these conditions, but on face value it appears to be working well, which is really positive. We also tried to do a similar plan across the two cars to get some laps on the Wet and Intermediate tyre, so there’s a lot for us to go through tonight.”
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