Scuderia Ferrari had one of their best Fridays of the 2020 season at the Turkish Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc finished each session second and third respectively and managed to control the unfavoured track conditions well. In Free Practice One, the track was dubbed as icy, with drivers sliding around corners and going unreasonably slower than usual.
Leclerc’s Free Practice Two time ended up being nearly seven seconds faster than the earlier session, showing that track conditions got better as the day went on.
Leclerc said: “At first I was not very convinced by the grip level of the track and thought this was going to be a very bad day, but after a few laps I actually really enjoyed it, as it was a lot of fun to have such low grip. It felt like driving on ice!
“Seriously though, it’s not great to have a Friday like this as you don’t learn much, but in terms of driving it was good fun and we were competitive too. I don’t know how much track conditions will improve throughout the weekend so it’s good that we’ve done quite a lot of mileage today to understand the conditions and hopefully we can maximise the result tomorrow.
“The weather forecast doesn’t look great for tomorrow so I don’t know how things could be in the rain, it could be a very tricky day, but if we do everything perfectly, this could be a good opportunity for us.”
Sebastian Vettel finished his Friday with a fifth and a eighth place finish, arguably his best Friday in a long time and also putting the team in a great position.
Despite his good day, Vettel still doesn’t feel like he got the best out of his car, citing it was getting faster and faster as the second practice drew to a close.
“Today was quite unusual, as the asphalt is very new, so it was very slippery. Of course it did get better towards the end of the day and I guess the improvement will continue over the weekend. We were quite consistent today, but it’s clearly too soon to have a comprehensive picture of where we are. It was mainly a question of finding a rhythm, and doing as many laps as possible to get confidence in the car as well as with the track,” said Vettel.
“In the final part of FP2 we were getting faster and faster. We have not seen the real levels out there today as most people struggled to get their tyres to work. Tomorrow’s third free practice session will be very important as the track will still be evolving. The rain could be a factor also, so I expect it will be quite a busy day.”
