Friday: Caterham F1 in position to compete with Marussia in Hungary
In difficulty for the past few races, the Caterham F1 team and its two drivers - Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson - seem more at ease on the Hungarian carousel of the Hungaroring.
Kamui Kobayashi (No. 10) – 19th and 19th
For the Japanese, the outcome from this first day in Budapest is good: Overall, it was the best Friday in a long time. We have made progress on almost all fronts, and it seems, according to our times, that we can be a bit more competitive compared to our closest rivals. Good reliability has been one of the keys to this, for us and Renault, so we should be quite happy.
« On my first stint in FP1, there was almost no grip at all, and I also experienced some brake locking issues at the front and rear, so we made some changes to the car for the second stint and improved a little afterwards. The grip was still very low, I couldn’t judge the balance: it was changing from oversteer to understeer in every corner, so we made mechanical and aero changes for the next stint and we really found some time. At the end of the session, the grip was improving and I was able to find balance. »
During FP2, I immediately experienced quite a bit of understeer pretty much everywhere. We tried other mechanical changes and the balance improved a bit, but on my fastest lap of the second stint, I spun off so we switched to soft tires. The car was really better and the long runs were going very well.
Marcus Ericsson (#9) – 20th and 22nd
For the Swede, the observation was the same. He mostly took it in stride: « At the start of FP1, the grip was very low, the car was sliding everywhere and I couldn’t push. […] we had to let the track come to us as the overall grip level improved. »
Like his teammate, the switch to soft tires changed the behavior of his CT05: « The track temperature increased a lot in FP2 and for me, the car’s behavior was quite strange in the first stint. It was switching from oversteer to understeer in most corners, and honestly, it was quite difficult not to make a mistake. The balance improved a bit, but it was very difficult to attack as I would have liked. With the soft tires, the car improved and, as the track rubbered in, the grip levels finally increased. On my performance stint with soft tires, I didn’t really have a clean lap, so there’s more to come. »
