Michael Schumacher set the pace in Shanghai on Friday, beating Lewis Hamilton while Sebastian Vettel was third...
Mercedes:
Michael Schumacher: "It was a trouble-free day, and I am quite happy with how our car is handling so far here. The balance of the car was reasonably good, and obviously a balanced car contributes a lot to lap time. As a team, we are a lot stronger in certain areas this season, and we have a much better base to work from, although we are not quite where we want to be with this car yet but I am confident we will get there. We will now have to look deeper into the data in order to find out where we really are here, but I am looking forward to tomorrow's qualifying."
Nico Rosberg: "It's important for us at the moment that we try a lot of different evaluations during practice to improve our race pace. So I think it was a decent start to the race weekend today as we learned quite a few interesting things. The conditions were so changeable today that it was difficult to take the right decisions in terms of set-up work, and we struggled a little with the front tyres. That may have been caused by the cold temperatures today, and can change very quickly between now and the race, so I am not too concerned."
McLaren:
Lewis Hamilton: "It's been a great day - it stayed dry in the afternoon so we successfully got through our run programme. We're still working away to improve the set-up, but the new bits on the car seem to be working: the guys back at the factory have done a great job.
"We look competitive - and I've been particularly focusing on the longer runs for this weekend. We still need to make a few improvements but our car looks good.
"I'll be changing the gearbox on my car before P3. It's going to be a close qualifying session tomorrow - it'll be a good battle and hopefully we can start as high up the grid as possible because I think we'll still be in the race and among the leading group. I love the challenge of coming through and gaining positions."
Jenson Button: "It's been a little bit of a difficult day for me. I was trying to find a good set-up but the cold weather made it difficult to understand the car because the tyres weren't working perfectly.
"Tomorrow should be a bit warmer than today - we don't quite understand the tyre temperatures and can't get them quite in the right area. And if we make a set-up change and the tyre temp changes by five or 10 degrees, then that change goes out the window.
"That's something for us to sort out, but we've got a lot of useful information from the low- and high-fuel runs. It's been a tricky day but there's a lot of good information to go through - we'll find a better direction overnight."
Red Bull:
Sebastian Vettel: "It is tight between the cars. I haven't seen everything, but I think overall we can be quite happy. We tried a lot of things today and now we need to go through everything and see what the best set-up is. If you look at the car, you can see a big difference compared to the set-up we used for Malaysia, but driving it's hard to say, as I don't have a comparison to this track. It's cooler here than at the last two races; I felt more comfortable, but we'll see. It's tricky to say if we look competitive. McLaren look good in all conditions."
Mark Webber: "The sessions were mixed in terms of weather, but we were able to get some good information. We managed to run slick tyres this morning between showers and this afternoon we did a few long and short runs, so we're learning a lot quickly, which is important on a Friday. We've got a lot of stuff to go through tonight and will continue to find out more tomorrow and on Sunday. We've come from a track that's 50˚C to a cooler circuit, so we have more grip here which helps, but I think overall that we're moving in the right direction."
Sauber:
Kamui Kobayashi: "We had a few minor issues to fix, but overall today's practice sessions went smoothly. Sometimes the visibility was a bit poor and this didn't help to predict where the track was and wasn't slippery. My car definitely felt better balanced in the afternoon's practice session than it did in the morning, and I believe we look okay here on this track. Of course there is still room for improvement in regard to the set-up. When we make our decisions for tomorrow we will not focus too much on today's track conditions, as we expect the temperatures to be a bit higher then."
Sergio Perez: "The balance of my car had actually been better in the first free practice session compared to the afternoon. I wasn't too happy in the second free practice. I had problems with the brakes, which didn't work the way they should, and I lost too much front tyre temperature on the back straight. It was too easy to lock the front. We need to improve the car's overall balance for qualifying. We have a bit of homework now, but we have gathered quite a good amount of data."
Related Links
Prac Two: Schumacher sets the pace
