Three weekends of racing in a row, three weekends in which the rain – whether on Thursday, Friday or Saturday – reminded us that “hot and sunny” in summer is not a foregone conclusion. The rain threatened to fall during FP1, just appearing in the form of a drizzle with minutes to spare; but come FP2, the taps were well and truly open.
As always, it’s difficult to draw conclusions from a wet session. Temperatures drop, grip takes leave of absence and the drivers are forced to tip-toe around the soaked circuit, just trying to keep their car facing the right way. The conditions are difficult, and so is to glean any useful information from the data coming back from the track.
Just as these conditions can be difficult for the people in the cockpit and in the engineers’ office, however, they can be an opportunity. The history of F1 is littered with wet races that produced surprising results: that’s why on a weekend like this, when it is just Friday, everyone in the paddock has still a hopeful glint in the eye.
Bring on tomorrow, and qualifying – the only way to see which hopes will live into the evening, is to put them through the test of reality…
Kimi Räikkönen (car number 7):
Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN C39 (Chassis 02/Ferrari)
1st practice: did not participate / 2nd practice: 9th / 1:43.471 (16 laps)
“The conditions out there weren’t easy this afternoon, so it’s quite hard to get a good amount of information. We are obviously still a bit far off from where we’d like to be, which means we will need to work hard tonight, crunch all the data and hopefully come back with a better car for tomorrow. The weather could play a part in qualifying, but we won’t know it until we’re there, in the meantime we just have to figure out the best way forward with the setup.”
Antonio Giovinazzi (car number 99):
Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN C39 (Chassis 04/Ferrari)
1st practice: 17th / 1:18.425 (30 laps) / 2nd practice: 11th / 1:44.411 (9 laps)
“It hasn’t been the most straightforward Friday but there is still plenty of scope to improve. I did a fair bit of running in the wet, on top of the session in the dry in the morning: hopefully this means we have enough data for our engineers to work with to find the best balance for tomorrow. The rest of the weekend could still produce surprises when it comes to the weather, so we will need to take that into account when setting up the car for qualifying: we will also need to be ready for any opportunity, to seize the moment as you never know what can happen in a wet qualifying or race.”
Robert Kubica (car number 88):
Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN C39 (Chassis 02/Ferrari)
1st practice: 19th / 1.19.150 (26 laps) / 2nd practice: did not participate
“It’s been a busy Friday in the car for me as we followed our test programme, trying different things to tackle this kind of weather. I think we did some useful work and hopefully it will reflect in a step forward in performance for tomorrow and Sunday. We continue to work on understanding how our car works in different conditions: running in the wet and on a cold track means we need to adapt to the circumstances, with the engineers relying on our feedback to make their decisions.”
The Sauber Group of Companies is composed of three operational entities: Sauber Motorsport AG, which operates and manages the Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN Formula One team; Sauber Engineering AG, which focuses on prototype development and additive manufacturing; and Sauber Aerodynamik AG, which conducts full and model-scale testing in the factory’s state-of-the-art wind tunnel and creates ground-breaking innovations in the field of aerodynamics. The companies collaborate closely and share know-how to apply the expertise of more than 500 dedicated individuals at the headquarter in Hinwil, Switzerland, to all internal and external projects. Since its founding in 1970, the passion for racing has been at the heart of Sauber.
For the last 50 years, the innovative Swiss company has been setting standards in the design, development and construction of race cars for various championship series, such as Formula One, DTM, and WEC. Following its own Formula One debut in 1993, Sauber Motorsport AG has established one of the few traditional and privately held teams in the sport. After 25 years of competition in Formula One, the company launched a long-term partnership with Alfa Romeo in 2018 and enters the 2020 championship under the new team name Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN.
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Senior Communications Manager
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Communications Manager
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