In the round-up: Esteban Ocon says he needs to get his one-lap pace up to his team mate’s standard.
What they say
Ocon’s team mate Daniel Ricciardo was comfortably the quicker of the two on Friday:
It’s good to see that we can have the potential. On our car we struggled a little bit just to find the right balance, the right rhythm, struggling on our side to get that at the moment. So the work continues from Silverstone.
We need to get that one lap pace better. We still didn’t do it yet. So we need to have a good look tonight to manage to turn it around tomorrow.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
According to the @FIA and @F1, none of the people connected with the sport tested positive for Covid-19 over the past week. There were 5,467 tests conducted. #F1 #SpanishGP
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) August 14, 2020
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Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Mercedes sets the pace on Friday in Barcelona (Mercedes)
"The long-run is more of a challenge and the area we need to work on tonight. The story looks similar to recent races; we’re reasonable compared to all cars except Verstappen – with him it looks very close."
Ilott heads Shwartzman in Barcelona for second successive pole (F2)
"Championship leader Callum Ilott sealed his second successive pole position in Formula 2, ahead of title rival Robert Shwartzman."
Sargeant beats out Hughes in Barcelona for his third pole in a row (F3)
"Prema's Logan Sargeant took his third successive Formula 3 pole position in qualifying at Barcelona, finishing one tenth quicker than the continually improving HWA of Jake Hughes, with Hitech’s Liam Lawson in third, another 0.1s off."
Guenther Steiner: "These have been our best Friday sessions this year. This kind of circuit, where there’s less high-speed sectors, it helps us as it’s a lot less power sensitive. We’ve always been relatively good here in Barcelona, I don’t know the reason why. I was cautiously optimistic in testing at the beginning of the year, and this shows that I wasn’t wrong."
F1 legend Alonso excited to be back at Indy with new team, team mates (IndyCar)
"This year with the boost change for the qualifying, there is no really big point doing anything for qualifying before Friday because it’s going to be a big change of power. At the moment, we are ticking off the boxes."
Fernando official trailer (Amazon via YouTube)
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Comment of the day
Given Ferrari’s secret deal with the FIA earlier this year, team principal Mattia Binotto’s call for greater “transparency” over the Racing Point row prompted some amused responses:
Good message, worst people to deliver it. Coming from anyone else it would be 100% right but coming from them it looks like ‘do as I say but not as I do’.
Shame, because clarity and transparency over this issue is totally needed but Ferrari being champions of it is completely laughable.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
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On this day in F1
- 50 years ago today home favourite Jochen Rindt took pole position for the first round of the world championship to be held at the Osterreichring (now the Red Bull Ring)
JohnH (@johnrkh)
15th August 2020, 1:21
COTD Perfect.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
15th August 2020, 12:51
shows how bad f1 fans are. 2 wrongs don’t make a right. the most important thing is f1, not a or b and the rp debacle is a sporting issue not technical.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
15th August 2020, 3:59
Of course. One second a lap behind Verstappen feel very close. They could be a minute ahead after 66 laps or having three extra pit stop, but for Mercedes, Verstappen is the most scary god of death or something.
bosyber (@bosyber)
15th August 2020, 6:07
Well @ruliemaulana as the Friday practice article from racefans.net shows, Verstappen may actually be a bit faster on race pace. Recall that the qualifying advantage of Mercedes seems bigger than what they have in the races
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
15th August 2020, 6:49
@bosyber I think we knew Mercedes never use ‘you can’t pass me’ button in Friday. They still have that during the race.
I just hope Max share his tyres management skills to Albon so RedBull could targeted at least one Mercedes on every hot European races.
frood19 (@frood19)
15th August 2020, 7:26
Good point re Albon. If he can qualify in the top 4 and keep up with the leaders, it will make things doubly hard for Mercedes if they are tight on tyres.
Balue (@balue)
15th August 2020, 9:41
@ruliemaulana @frood19 Albon’s trouble is mostly qualifying.
But it’s honestly embarrassing for a team like Red Bull to not be able to sort out two good drivers, but have other teams refer to only one of them as a threat.
It’s really time for Mateschitz to put the foot down with Marko and his insistence on his beloved young driver program.
Chris Horton
15th August 2020, 7:34
Blah blah Mercedes blah. Verstappen will qualify a second behind.
This constant playing down their performance is so draining.
Jere (@jerejj)
15th August 2020, 7:54
F1 legend? That’s quite a big word to use for referring to him.
COTD: Perfectly put.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
15th August 2020, 12:52
good word actually. Roebuck would concur.