Report: Team record century of laps on Friday in Melbourne

Our first day of running at the updated Albert Park Circuit is complete, with the team picking up some valuable data to take forward into the rest of the weekend.

Both drivers finished in the same positions for both FP1 and FP2, with Alex Albon in P17 and Nicholas Latifi in P19.

Our No23 completed 53 laps and recorded his quickest time of a 1:21.912 during the latter of the two sessions, but the Thai driver has made it clear that there is still work to do this evening, saying:

“It’s a cool circuit here in Melbourne; the track is a lot of fun to drive and the fans have been incredible.

“Today could have gone a little better, but we made a good step up between FP1 and FP2 so we’re going in the right direction and we know what we need to focus on.

“We’ll continue the work tonight, and hopefully we’re in a stronger place for Qualifying tomorrow.”

His teammate managed 49 laps on what was his maiden outing at Albert Park, with a best time of 1:22.307 – and the Canadian enjoyed his first taste of the leafy parkland venue.

“It was a pretty fun first day getting to experience the Albert Park track as it’s my first time driving here,” he said, adding: “It’s very fast, especially where they’ve made changes to the track.

“It’s got a street track vibe in some corners, and a little more technical than I was expecting, but I think lap by lap we were gaining confidence.

“Still a lot of gains to be made with the driving and the car. Hopefully we’ll make some good changes overnight to put us in a better position for tomorrow.”

With seven corners changed and whole chicane removed, it was important to get data on the new layout – something that our Head of Vehicle Performance, Dave Robson, spoke about when we caught up with him this evening. “We have spent today concentrating on the new circuit layout and the behaviour of the tyre on the new surface,” he explained. “The track remains challenging and exciting, with plenty of fast corners and changes of direction. “The tyre behaviour was quite good in FP1 but changed a little in FP2 as the track grip improved and the temperature dropped. We haven’t made the most of the Qualifying compound yet and so we certainly have some work to do with that. “Otherwise, the balance wasn’t too bad by FP2 and each driver only has some fine tuning to do overnight.” Follow all the action tomorrow and Sunday on our live feed.