Williams Racing’s Head of Vehicle Performance, Dave Robson says it is fantastic to have cars on track at the Zandvoort track in the Netherlands as Formula One prepares for the 2021 Dutch Grand Prix. Speaking following the action he said:
It has been fantastic to run the cars on this tricky circuit. The whole track is demanding with very little opportunity for the cars or drivers to get a rest. The profiling of the circuit makes several of the corners quite difficult and places different demands on the car and the tyres, with several drivers finding the limit during the day. The regular red flags hampered some of our work, but we still got a lot of our programme done, including some useful high fuel running late in FP2.
With a short track and hard tyre compounds, track position is going to be at a premium in Q1 as it was regularly today. Whilst we thought that Zandvoort might be less favourable for the FW43B than Spa, the times today don’t really tell the full story as we didn’t get to do representative laps. There is a lot to do tonight to improve the car, but we are happy that there is more to come tomorrow.
George Russell who has been the topic of conversation so far this weekend with rumors rife that he will partner Lewis Hamilton at the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team next season spoke about practice saying:
It was a great experience driving this circuit today. I think it’s definitely a driver’s favourite, it’s very undulating and all the banking is great to drive. It’s fast, flowing and you can’t put a wheel wrong and that is what we all want from a race track. It wasn’t easy out there though and it was a very interrupted day with all the red flags. There’s therefore not a huge amount to take away from today but the pace isn’t quite as we’d like. Nevertheless, a few improvements overnight and I think we will be able to make some good steps. The traffic is also really difficult to manage with this short lap and I think that it is going to be key to get a clear run tomorrow, particularly in Q1.
Nicholas Latifi commented saying:
It was definitely challenging out there today. It’s a tight and twisty circuit with very few straights, so having 20 cars on track made it difficult to get some space. I spent a lot of time looking in my mirrors which can be quite difficult to manage on a hot lap. It’s also a very fun track to drive though; it’s high speed and narrow, so a proper old school track that will punish you if you make a mistake!