Lotus:

Jolyon Palmer, E23-02Free practice 1: P15, 1:41.967, 25 lapsJolyon: “I've been waiting to get my hands on the E23 during a Grand Prix weekend and the experience didn't disappoint. The track was quite green which provided its own set of slippery challenges and I had to learn the circuit quickly as I hadn't driven in Shanghai before but overall I'm happy with P15. I was able to complete a decent tally of laps and test the limits of grip on a couple of occasions on the fresh track. It was great to be out on track and mixing it on a Grand Prix weekend." Romain Grosjean, E23-02Free practice 2: P9, 1:39.142, 32 lapsRomain: “Obviously I’d have preferred to be in the car for both sessions but we had a good afternoon and we’re always happy to see a top ten lap time. We completed a good number of laps and the car feels basically pretty strong. As always, we’ve got some areas we can improve on but we’ve made a good start.” Pastor Maldonado, E23-03Free practice 1: P11, 1:41.335, 23 lapsFree practice 2: P11, 1:39.444, 30 lapsPastor: “I didn’t feel 100% happy with the car for all of today, but we made good progress on getting the set-up where I want it so it’s been a good day. The weather’s been pretty good here and certainly better than some of the forecasts we saw earlier in the week. It’s a fun circuit to drive with some good challenges and I think we should have a strong car for tomorrow’s qualifying.”Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “A solid day for us with no issues to report. Jolyon did a great job for the first time in the car in an official practice session and ended the session just outside the top ten and only six tenths off of Pastor’s lap time so that was a strong first effort. Both Pastor and Romain made good progress with their set-ups and there’s further time to be found. We’re looking forward to seeing what’s possible tomorrow.”

Red Bull:

DANIEL RICCIARDO First Practice Session: Position: 6, Best Time: 1:41.029, Laps: 21Second Practice Session: Position: 3, Best Time: 1:38.311, Laps: 24 laps “We had a good Friday, we got all the running we could from the sessions and our pace looks good. We had a few aero updates and drivability is always getting better, we definitely have had an improvement and that’s all we can ask for. We obviously have a few more steps to take but we’re making them in the right direction, so that’s positive.” DANIIL KVYAT First Practice Session: Position: 7, Best Time: 1:41.097, Laps: 24Second Practice Session: Position: 6, Best Time: 1:38.737, Laps: 10“We are investigating what happened with the brakes, it felt like I couldn’t stop the car, so we need to learn more about that. Everything had been fine up until the end of FP2. It’s a shame I couldn’t make a longer run but we still got many useful laps in. We brought some upgrades here and they look quite positive.”

Williams:

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We completed the majority of our plan today, unfortunately we didn’t get all the data we would have liked to due to Felipe’s spin in the second session. The spin was caused by a rear wing stall which was easy to rectify so we were confident when sending Valtteri back out. The data and driver feedback from the new parts we have installed seem positive, but there is still more work to do to see where we are in comparison to our rivals ahead of qualifying and the race.Valtteri Bottas: It was a normal Friday for us without any mistakes or unknowns. The updates we brought have worked, so we are a little quicker through the corners now, which is always positive. The temperature here suits us better than in Malaysia, so I think we can be strong in qualifying but we need to make sure we focus on the race and especially on the front left tyre graining.Felipe Massa: The first session went to plan, but this afternoon we had a few issues with the rear wing. Under braking I lost all grip in the rear tyres and as a result the car spun which put me out for the rest of the session. We lost a lot of time, but the team made the changes to Valtteri’s rear wing so the same wouldn’t happen to him. We need to have a strong day tomorrow to set ourselves up well for the race.

Toro Rosso:

Carlos Sainz (STR10-04, Car 55)

First Practice Session

Best lap: 1:41.112, pos. 8th, 23 laps

Second Practice Session

Best lap: 1:39.971, pos. 15th, 28 laps

“We managed to go through today’s plan with no issues, so I’m happy with that. FP1 was all about learning the track. I felt quite comfortable from the very beginning and was able to build-up on that. It’s a nice track, I like driving here, it’s challenging and different to other circuits, which is good. FP2 was more focussed on tyre life and performance. Unfortunately, during the Option run the red flag spoiled our short run, but when we went back out to complete the long run I felt good. Everything is very close here, it’s going to be a tight fight this weekend, but we are ready for it.”

Max Verstappen (STR10-03, Car 33)

First Practice Session

Best lap: 1:41.575, pos. 12th, 28 laps

Second Practice Session

Best lap: 1:39.894, pos.14th, 32 laps

“It was a bit of a difficult day today, to be honest. I wasn’t really happy with the balance of the car in FP1, so we tried to improve it for FP2. It was better but we still need to find a bit more pace. Of course, we were also not able to complete the ideal lap this afternoon because when we went out the red flag came out. There’s definitely room for improvement and hopefully we can do a better job tomorrow. I like driving here, it’s a technical track and quite challenging, but that’s what I like.”

Phil Charles (Chief Race Engineer)

“It hasn’t been the best of days for us today. Our long run pace is relatively better than our short run pace, but we’ve got a lot of work to do tonight. It’s a tricky track, both in terms of setting the car up and for the drivers, so we know we’ve got to look in both directions. We’ll help them where we can but we’ve got to kick hard now and make the car easier to drive. We will sit down and do our homework now and try and make everything a little bit better, kinder on the drivers, and the short run will hopefully come up quite nicely then. We’re not as happy as we have been recently, but it’s only Friday so we still have time to get back to where we know we can be.”