Monaco Grand Prix 2015 – Practice


FP1
Weather: Cool and Dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 14 – 15°C / 16 – 22°C
Felipe Massa: FW37-02, PU106B Hybrid: 1:19.766 (10th)
Valtteri Bottas: FW37-03, PU106B Hybrid: 1:20.917 (17th)
Quickest Time: L. Hamilton (1:18.750)

FP2
Weather: Cool with Showers
Air & Track Temperatures: 13 – 15°C / 17 – 23°C
Felipe Massa: FW37-02, PU106B Hybrid: 1:19.560 (12th)
Valtteri Bottas: FW37-03, PU106B Hybrid: 1:19.566 (13th)
Quickest Time: L. Hamilton (1:17.192)

Objectives: Set-up work, aero evaluations and tyre work

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: It was a bit of a truncated session because of the rain so we’ve missed out on valuable time to learn about the track and our set-up, but this is the same for everyone and is something you just have to get on with and adapt to. Hopefully FP3 will allow us to complete our set-up work. We managed to work through some of the things we wanted from a technical perspective, but practice in Monaco is normally about getting the drivers on the circuit and feeling comfortable. We have a bit of work to do to understand the balance of the car and how to manage the tyres, and we now have an extra day before we are next on track to work on these areas.

Felipe Massa: It hasn’t been as productive a day as we would have liked as the rain restricted our running. Our focus is on Saturday and the forecast says no rain, so there was nothing for us to learn running in the wet. We had a good first session running on the soft tyre and will take the data we have from that. Free practice on Saturday morning will be important to get the car set-up correctly.

Valtteri Bottas: We struggled to get the soft tyre working at its optimum and missed the chance to try the supersoft due to the weather, but that is the same for everyone. We have a lot of work to do to make sure tyre temperatures are correct but have little data to go from. It was a tough day with the weather but it’s the same situation for everyone in the pitlane.

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