What the teams said – Friday practice at the 2024 Emilia-Romanga Grand Prix

Haas

Bearman made his 2024 Haas FP1 bow in Imola, fresh from crashing in F2 earlier on. To Magnussen’s relief he managed to keep his practice session clean and tidy, while Hulkenberg was running a different programme to his team mate and thus couldn’t be used to compare times. Magnussen returned to the cockpit in FP2, but he couldn’t quite match his team mate for times, with Hulkenberg once again impressing with his one-lap pace and winding up in the top 10.

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Nico Hulkenberg – FP1: 1:21.059, P20; FP2: 1:16.826, P9

“This morning we did a bit of rake running to gather aero data to compare the launch car to the current car. In FP2, we went back to the normal program and it all felt okay. It was very windy out there today, so cars were quite difficult to drive because it’s inconsistent in terms of grip, hence making it easy to run off the track a bit. It’s an intense track, pretty fast but also has a great feel to it as well, I’m enjoying it.”

Oliver Bearman – FP1: 1:18.667, P15

“I’m really happy with my performance in FP1. The session was a bit shorter because of the red flag but I’m quite happy with how I got up to speed with the car. Driving FP1 in F2 as well really helped me to make that step pretty quickly. I think all the work we’re doing behind the scenes is paying off because already from the early laps I was feeling really comfortable in the car and at home. The long run also went well, and the car feels like a good step compared to last year. I’m proud of the guys, they’re having a great season so far and I can’t wait to jump in again.”

Kevin Magnussen – FP2: 1:17.129, P17

“It’s a great track to drive, so it’s a pleasure to get in the car. It’s not an easy track to just jump in and be on it, but I wasn’t that far off. It’s super tight here, even tighter than usual, the midfield is crazy. I’m three or four tenths off Red Bull and I’m P17, so that tells you how close it is. You’re finding more and more time every lap and it’s probably the closest circuit to a street track that isn’t a street track because it’s so rough and raw, which I really enjoy.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal

“We had Ollie drive FP1 in place of Kevin and as he’s done before, he did a very good job. The first run we used to get him familiarized to the car, and he had a decent run on the soft tire, high fuel and did well on tire management as well, so that was another really good job. In FP1, Nico had a bit of car trouble, but we largely used Nico’s car to gather data on this latest package, so it wasn’t really a performing session for him.

“In FP2, Kevin hopped back into the car, and I think it’s pretty clear in a few corners, we are really struggling so we’re going to look at set-up changes for tomorrow. Other than that, on the lower cornering-speed corners, our performance is decent. On high-fuel, I think our limitations are pretty clear so we’ll work on that tonight. FP2 was already definitely one step better than FP1 though, so we’ll look at what changes we can make overnight to make it better tomorrow.”