Thursday: A very good day at Caterham

Charles Pic – 20th and 20th:

« The free practice 1 went well for me. The steering felt a bit weak on the installation lap so we adjusted that, and then we worked on the understeer I had on the first stint. On the third stint we found a good balance.

This continued in this afternoon’s session and I’m quite happy with the position we finished in. I couldn’t get a clear lap with the super-softs, but on the long stints with the softs, we found that we had a good level of degradation, enough to give us several options for Sunday, and the car was good throughout the stint.

We conducted an aerodynamic test last week to help resolve some issues detected with the new package in Spain. During free practice 1, we continued the aerodynamic testing based on what we learned during this straight-line test. The initial results were good and this will give us even more work for tonight, and provide us with more performance potential to extract tomorrow [Saturday in reality, ed.] and Sunday.

Another very good thing today is the fact that we quickly found a balance that works well with both compounds, so we were able to accomplish everything scheduled during both sessions. We didn’t have any issues that could have slowed us down, compared to the minor problems encountered during free practice 1 and 2 in Spain, so this puts us in a better position for Saturday and Sunday than we have ever been this season.

Giedo van der Garde – 19th and 22nd:

« I clearly enjoyed my first day in an F1 at Monaco and I think we made good progress today. During Free Practice 1, the track’s grip level was quite low as expected, but it quickly came around and by the end of the session, it was possible to push on a full lap. We had a few issues with front-wheel lock-ups and unfortunately, I damaged a front wing on my third stint, but apart from that, everything went well. We improved the traction during the session and started to manage the oversteer I had on the initial stints.

During free practice 2, the car was immediately better after modifying a few settings and parts, and the warmer track conditions helped the tires to work faster, so my first stint was good. We switched to super softs afterward and waited for a gap in traffic, but then on my fast lap, the red flags came out when Romain [Grosjean, ed.] had an accident that damaged the barriers. It was bad timing for us because I was on my fastest lap of the day, and I think we could have been in 1:17, which is more representative of our true pace today. However, free practice 1 and 2 were not really about fast laps. They were about what we achieved, which was executing our program: beginning to understand how to manage the tires and generating as much data as possible for the guys at the factory and here at the Grand Prix. I’m sure on Saturday we’ll show what we can do here, and I think the tire strategies will make things very interesting!