I’m happy with the feeling of the car. I got up-to-speed quickly this afternoon and it feels like we have good potential for the weekend. I think there is more speed to come, which hopefully we will find tonight to be ready for qualifying. The track was changing a lot during the session and it should keep improving tomorrow as well. The long run pace was strong and I think we can have a competitive weekend.

I feel satisfied with today. They were not easy sessions because the track was so dirty and it was easy to make mistakes, but we managed to stay out of trouble. There was massive track evolution as well, which makes it difficult to understand the tyres. We just need to wait and see where we are tomorrow but Q3 definitely looks realistic. We need to keep working, keep pushing and see where we end up tomorrow.

Making my practice debut at home was a special feeling and I’m happy with the session. I’m still learning about the VJM11 and I had to learn the track so to keep my nose clean was important. We started on hypersofts and then moved to ultrasofts, so I was still learning the track when on the best tyre. I was leaving some margin to avoid doing something silly while I was still building my confidence. Lap times were not really my goal today and I was just focussing on doing my job for the team. For example, we did lots of aero runs to give the team the data we needed. Jumping from an F2 car to a Formula One is always enjoyable and I am looking forward to other opportunities to be in the car in the future.

It’s very tight in the midfield, but the long run pace of both cars was encouraging. We still need to improve our low fuel pace, but the drivers are generally happy with the feel of the car. Nicholas did a very good job during his first FP1 session with the team and gave helpful feedback, which allowed Sergio to be on the pace straight away in the afternoon despite limited track time. Track evolution made it tricky evaluating the tyres, but we have collected all the data we need to guide our decision-making this evening.