McLaren Racing Formula One team Executive Director Racing, Andrea Stella says that the Woking-based outfit has had a very productive Friday as the sport returned to Melbourne’s Albert Park for the first time in 756 days. Lando Norris ended the day in eighth place with a time of 01:20.100s while Daniel Ricciardo set a time of 01:20.203s to end the day in tenth place. Speaking following the action, Stella said:
“We’ve had a very productive Friday in Melbourne. Despite several interruptions for red flags, we could work through our programme without problems. Understanding the tyres was a significant part of that: they look interesting this weekend!
“In terms of competitiveness, we seem to have taken a small step forward. We’ll have to work hard tonight to try and consolidate our position with the aim of being in contention for a position in Q3 tomorrow, and hopefully fighting for some points on Sunday.
Daniel Ricciardo who completed 47 laps over the course of the day commented saying:
“It was a good day, just getting back into the groove here in Melbourne, and I enjoyed it. The layout has always been fun, but it now has some additional changes to it and for the most part, I like them. Both cars ended in the top ten in both sessions today, so hopefully it’s a sign of things to come for the weekend. We’re in a decent place with the car and we’ll just keep at it. We will try to adapt with the track in terms of changes for the rest of the weekend to stay on top of it. I have good confidence and hopefully it turns into better days to come.”
Lando Norris completed 46 laps over the course of the two sessions on Friday and speaking following the track activity he said:
“Today was one of our better days so far this season. I think we started off the day well with a good balance and just made further improvements, moving in a decent direction. So far it looks similar to Jeddah, which is a good thing for us, because that was a decent weekend. Things are looking reasonably good, there’s still a bit more to improve, so that’s our job going into qualifying tomorrow.”