First day of free practice for the Japanese GP rather complex at Alpine, with both drivers of the French team closing the two sessions scheduled for today outside the 15th position. The only exception, actually, was the performance of Pierre Gasly in FP2, at the end of which the Frenchman set the 14th time improving slightly (not in chronometric terms) the performance of FP1, which had seen him 15th in the standings.
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A Friday to review for the Enstone team, although there is no lack of confidence ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying, as highlighted by Gasly himself: “Overall, it was not an easy day for us here at Suzuka – he explained – in the first free practice session we struggled with the balance, but in the second session we made a decent improvement. The feeling with the car is not yet what I would like, so we definitely need to improve ahead of tomorrow. The standings are very tight, especially up to seventh position, behind the top three teams. Only a couple of tenths of a second separate fifteenth from seventh, so I’m confident that tomorrow in qualifying it will be a tight battle again. If we can make some small improvements, I think they will have a big impact on our final result, so we will continue to work hard behind the scenes tonight, and I’m confident that tomorrow will go better”.
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As expected, the first two sessions served Franco Colapinto to get familiar with the Suzuka circuit. Before today, like Arvid Lindblad, the Argentine had never competed in any race or practice session in his career on the Japanese track, finishing 16th in FP1 and receiving a warning after FP2 for slowing down Verstappen just before the 130R: “Overall it was a challenging free practice day, but from which we learned a lot. It’s the first time I’m driving at Suzuka, on this legendary circuit, and it was really fantastic to be able to do it in a Formula 1 and tackle some of these very particular corners. We gained confidence lap after lap and by the end of the first free practice session we were in a much better position, although we didn’t yet feel completely confident with the car, especially in some high-speed sections. The situation was similar in the second free practice session as well, so we have some details to analyze and fix and we hope to be able to tackle tomorrow’s qualifying in a much better and more competitive position”.
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