Friday: Caterham improves as the hours go by

Charles Pic – 19th and 20th

The Free Practice 1 session was good for me. The track was obviously very green to start with, and one of the first things I noticed is how bumpy the new pit exit is, but overall, the car felt pretty good during the first complete lap. Initially, it wasn’t great in the high-speed corners, especially 7 and 8, but it felt good in the low-speed corners.

For the next stint, we changed the rear camber and removed a bit of front wing, and it was definitely better in high-speed corners, but overall, there was a loss of rear downforce and a bit more wheel locking, especially in the first sector. For the final stint, we made a change to the rear ride height and it improved the overall stability, especially in the last sector.

Between free practice 1 and 2, we made some changes to the car and in my first stint, the rear stability had slightly improved compared to the morning, as well as the aero balance. However, my traction was not good and in very low-speed corners, the car struggled, mainly on entry and mid-corner, so we changed the ride height and some things at the front for the first stint on option tires.

On the performance stint, the super-softs started to go off before the end of the first lap. The car’s balance was good before the degradation started, but after that, it was understeer everywhere, so we’ll have to look into how to manage that tonight. I switched back to mediums for the first stint of my long runs, but we had to cut it short after flat-spotting my tires in a small slide. The level of degradation before this point was quite good and gives us decent options for Sunday, if it doesn’t rain!

Giedo van der Garde – 20th and 19th

Overall, I think this is the best Friday we’ve had in a long time. I did the free practice 1 here in Korea last year, so the track wasn’t new to me and that’s clearly an advantage when every lap counts to maximize performance in free practice 1 and 2, and it paid off today, even though I know I didn’t extract the maximum during my fastest lap with the super-softs during free practice 2.

During the first session, at the beginning the car’s balance was not great. I had a bit of oversteer entering both high and low-speed corners, and we had some traction issues which meant I couldn’t really push, so we changed several things at the front and lowered the front wing a bit for the third run. The grip levels clearly increased quickly, but the changes pushed the car from oversteer to understeer, especially in medium and high-speed corners, so for the last run in free practice 1, we added a bit more front wing and lowered the ride height, and by the end of the session, we had made some positive progress.

During the free practice 2, we started with a car that seemed much better. I was immediately able to attack, and even though it was a bit on the edge in low-speed corners, overall the changes we made at lunchtime worked well – basically, this means I could place the car where I wanted and go at the desired speed in corners. We switched to the super-softs for the second stint and noticed that I had a bit too much understeer – this didn’t help me complete a good full lap, and I made a mistake in the last sector, so I know where I can find time tomorrow with the options.

We followed the usual Friday plan and I stayed on options tires for the first long stint. They held up well but I locked up around lap 16 of the long stint and had to slow down to let them cool off. Rather than trying to get them back up to temperature, we pitted and I finished the session on a set of mediums which worked well until the checkered flag.