Jenson Button, Romain grosjean and Felipe Massa, finished 1-2-3 in the second practice session in Monaco on Thursday afternoon. Here are some of their thoughts.
Jenson Button:
“The most important job today was to try and get a decent high-fuel long-run on the Supersoft tyre – which I don’t think anyone managed. We’ve got to see how the tyre works because its performance will play a considerable role in the race. Still, it was nice to briefly stick that tyre on and see how much grip it has – that gives you a bit of information to look over before Saturday, even though we’ll still get to run that compound again before qualifying. I definitely feel like the car improved from P1 to P2. We tried something different for this afternoon’s session and I was happier with how the car felt. There’s still room for improvement, but we know what direction we want to take.”
Romain Grosjean:
“I think the car is suiting the track pretty well and I love Monaco, it’s good to be here and it’s nice to see so many fans. The car was looking good this morning and this afternoon – we are working in a good direction. Unfortunately it was a bit wet this afternoon and we couldn’t do all the programme we wanted to achieve but as we have a good baseline it shouldn’t be such a big deal. Let’s see what the weather will be like tomorrow and what we can achieve. I think that we are looking good in both conditions.”
Felipe Massa:
“We weren’t able to do as much running as we would have liked because of the light rain that fell this afternoon, but all the same, I am happy with the way things went on this Monaco Thursday. The car seemed to me to be okay right from the start of the first session, with a good balance in all conditions and with slightly better traction than we had expected. Even when we ran the intermediates in the final part of the second session, the feeling was still positive. As for the tyres, we didn’t even fit the supersoft, therefore we can’t say anything about their behaviour, while the softs worked well, also in terms of their degradation. Sure, there is still plenty of work to do to fine tune all the set-up details, but we have an extra day to think about what to do to improve in this area. It’s hard to make predictions about qualifying and, even more so for the race, but definitely we can say the first day of free practice can be considered a positive one.”
