With the first day at Spa-Francorchamps complete, Renault DP World F1 Team are taking positives away from a strong performance from the Renault duo Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon.
Ricciardo recorded yet another strong Free Practice 2 performance finishing second on the time sheet.
The Australian driver has been consistently strong on the second Friday practice in previous race weekends and he hopes it can lead to a solid qualifying.
His practice wasn’t all good. His R.S 20 came into a hydraulic issue towards the end and had to stop his car as a precaution.
“It was another good Free Practice 2 as has been the case for us at the last few rounds. We have to do it tomorrow, though, as that’s when it counts. Today was strong, even with the issue at the end.” Said Ricciardo.
“For safety, we pulled the car over as there’s no point taking risks with mechanical issues on Fridays. Our low fuel run was a good one. During the lap, I knew it felt good and sometimes you just know when the car’s working.
“I knew it was competitive and I wasn’t that surprised it was up there on the timesheets. It was a good day and we certainly understood a lot from it.”
Esteban Ocon wasn’t as high on the second practices’ time sheet but is happy with how the team is running.
The Frenchman still put in a shift and was one tenth of a second quicker than his team-mate in the first practice.
Ocon stated; “Today was decent and we seem to be competitive as a team. We’ve made a good step from Barcelona and I’m happy with today’s running. There were lots of things we understood, which we’ll aim to put into tomorrow and Sunday.
“ It definitely looks promising for qualifying. It’s always nice to see a purple sector next to your name and that shows we have the speed. The long runs are hard to read especially with the red flag. We might see some cars running high fuel in FP3 to make up for the lack of running.”
Chief race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam is happy with how the team run today but are cautiously optimistic going into Saturday.
“We’re mostly happy with today’s running. The morning session went smoothly and to plan. There was some rain before FP2, which meant most teams held back before going out on track but, by the time we went out, the track was completely dry, and it didn’t have a significant effect on our overall run plan.” Said Pilbeam.
“Both drivers are reasonably happy with the car today. Daniel’s Soft tyre run was competitive; however, we’ve seen that before on a Friday so I would say only that we are cautiously optimistic. Esteban was also happy with the balance on his car.
“Daniel’s long run was going well but, after a couple of laps, the car stopped on track with a problem. That interrupted everyone’s long runs, including Esteban’s, but his run on Mediums looked consistent. We have everything we need to look at tonight to work on our qualifying and race strategy.”
