Carlos Sainz Jr. was disappointed to see his first Free Practice session curtailed by a coolant leak on board his R.S.18, which left the Spaniard with a lot to catch up during Friday’s afternoon session at the Hockenheimring.
The Renault Sport Formula One Team racer completed only ten laps in the first session and ended down in fourteenth position as a result, but ran forty-three laps in the afternoon to finish twelfth, just under a tenth of a second down on team-mate Nico Hülkenberg.
Whereas Hülkenberg managed to get some running with the new front wing Renault have brought to Germany this weekend, Sainz did not get that chance, but he hopes to take to the track on Saturday morning with that front wing on his car, which he hopes can help the team push for a top ten starting position.
“It was frustrating to miss most of FP1, but my crew did a great job to find and fix the issue so I could get a great number of laps in FP2,” said Sainz. “The car doesn’t feel bad and our pace looked good on the long run.
“Nico tried the new front wing and it seems to be working. I will try it tomorrow and together with some fine tuning I hope we can be back in the top ten.”
