Friday: There is still work to be done at Caterham

Heikki Kovalainen – 16th [Free Practice 1]:

It’s great to be back in the car and I’m thrilled to see how it has developed since the last time in Barcelona. The whole package feels better balanced and overall, there’s a real improvement felt behind the wheel. There are several things where I could immediately say that it was better – overall, the handling is better, there’s less pitching, and the front end seems really improved. On the downside, the braking stability wasn’t great today, but that’s something that can be easily fixed during Free Practice 2. Overall, I’m delighted to have had some time in the car and I’ll continue to help the team progress.

Giedo van der Garde – 17th and 19th:

The free practice 1 was a good start to the weekend. We did an installation lap with the wet tires but for the first stint, we switched to intermediates, but the track was drying quickly so they didn’t last very long. It seems that qualifying and the race might have similar conditions to those of free practice 1, so it’s good to have gathered information, but then we put on the hard tires for the second stint, giving us more information for the engineers to work on tonight.

During free practice 2, the weather improved compared to the morning session, but the car didn’t seem great during the first stint. We had a lot of oversteer in the first stint and not very good traction, so we changed that and went out for the second stint on mediums. The first stint on these tires went well, but we couldn’t really get the most out of these tires, so there’s clearly more to come from these softest compounds.

On the long stints on mediums, the car seemed pretty good, degradation levels were good but then at turn 15, I lost the rear and couldn’t prevent contact with the barriers, ending my session. We’re not quite sure why that happened but we’ll look at the data and investigate tonight. Fortunately, there’s more to come, so it’s a busy Friday night as usual and I think we can make progress tomorrow.

Charles Pic – 20th [Free Practice 2]:

« We immediately went out on hards during free practice 2 and the car was good, but the main problem in my first stint was oversteer in the middle and exit of the corners. We made some mechanical changes for the second stint, but I still had oversteer issues. However, with new changes, it slightly improved for the third stint when we fitted the mediums for the first time. The car was calmer in the middle and exit of the corners, but we struggled on corner entry. So for the long stints, we added a bit more front wing, and it seems we have made progress. We still need to improve the car’s stability on corner entry, but we can look at that tonight while keeping an eye on the weather forecast for tomorrow and Sunday. »