Team completes productive day in Turkish GP practice
Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team ended Friday's practice proceedings for the 2021 Turkish Grand Prix with 114 laps on the board.
Drivers Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel completed a productive practice programme ahead of qualifying at Istanbul Park.
Sebastian showed promising early pace on Friday morning by holding second when establishing a performance baseline in the AMR21.
His early 1.27.326 benchmark was consistently lowered during the opening stint which ended with a best lap time of 1.26.801.
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Lance was less than two tenths shy of his team-mate’s early pace before switching onto a new set of Soft tyres to focus on performance running.
In the second half of FP1, the Canadian produced a 1.26.361 lap which was worthy of ninth while Sebastian went five tenths faster with a personal best 1.25.855.
Running solely on the Soft tyre, both drivers gained a crucial understanding by evaluating the performance and durability of the fastest compound available this weekend.
After completing 25 laps, Sebastian ended FP1 in 13th. Lance was 17th with 28 laps on the board after having his fastest lap time, a 1.26.221, deleted after exceeding track limits.
During the afternoon, Lance and Sebastian ran on both the Soft and Medium tyres as they placed their focus on qualifying and race preparations.
Both drivers posted their best laps of the day in the first half of FP2, with Lance’s 1.25.020 effort on new Softs placing him in ninth, two-tenths faster than Sebastian in 14th
Turkish Grand Prix
Get ready for this weekend's Turkish Grand Prix with our in-depth preview. Hear from Lance and Sebastian, and discover the key talking points for the race ahead.
Alternating between used Softs and Mediums in the second half, the pairing completed consistent long-distance running to wrap up a productive practice program.
Lance ended the session in 13th after completing 31 laps, with Sebastian 16th with 30 laps on the board, bringing the team's Friday total to 114 laps.
Lance: "Today was about discovering a circuit that has recently had work done to improve the grip compared to last year, not to mention the tricky wind conditions for everyone out there.
"On our side, there are positives to take from today, but we know we need to find more pace in the car for the rest of the weekend. I am confident we can do so and we are targeting improvements in the balance of the car too.
"The main thing is that we know what we need to do. We will go away tonight and work hard to move forward.”
Sebastian: "Overall, I think we had a decent start to the weekend. We found a baseline in FP1 and, in the afternoon, we were exploring the limits and trying different things. I think there is more that we can learn in FP3 tomorrow ahead of qualifying, which is positive.
"After the recent work here, it still feels very much like the same circuit but with different grip conditions, so the targets have not changed much. For example, we know it is very important to have a strong front end, or it can be quite costly across a lap.
"Our task now is to optimise what we learned in both sessions and have a good qualifying session tomorrow."
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