The opening day of the Austrian Grand Prix has been a mainly positive one for Mclaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris, the British driver ended both sessions just inside the top ten.
The opening sessions at the venue where Norris claimed his first podium in Formula 1, saw him test multiple things, resulting in ending the day ninth fastest almost a second behind the pacesetter Lewis Hamilton.
Both sessions went fairly smoothly for Norris, the only mistake by the driver came in the second practice session where Norris span on the exit of the first corner. Thankfully for the team the spin was harmless and no damage was caused. Norris can be somewhat optimistic going into Saturday.
“A positive day because we tested a lot of different things, but we just haven’t put everything together really. Of the things we tested, some were good, some not as good, and we now have a better understanding of the car than we did last weekend. Hopefully we can choose all the best things from the work we did today and progress tomorrow to make sure we’re that little bit quicker than we were last week. Today was a productive day and let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”
“It’s been an interesting day” – Daniel Ricciardo
For the other Mclaren F1 Team driver Daniel Ricciardo, it was at least to him a good day at the office, the classification however doesn’t make for pretty reading with the Australian ending the opening day in fifteenth.
In Ricciardo’s defence the field is incredibly close, the honey badger is actually only two tenths behind team-mate Norris who sits in ninth. The closeness of the field further demonstrates the importance of getting everything out of the car around the Red Bull Ring. Ricciardo is hoping some fine-tuning will help find those few incredibly important tenths.
“It’s been an interesting day – from the classification it doesn’t look like a good day, but we actually made some progress in a few areas. We’ll just try to make another step tomorrow and maybe that puts us in the fight. If I didn’t know the classification, I’d be more optimistic with the day, but I think just some fine-tuning is needed. We’ll keep chipping away to find a few more tenths overnight and I think that’ll put us where we need to be. We’ve got some work to do, but we’re looking alright.”
