Yas Marina Circuit – 5,554 kms

Car: STR9 chassis number 03

Driver: Max Verstappen
Laps: 55
Best time: 1:47.194

Phil Charles (Chief Race Engineer)

“It was an interesting day today, as we ran with the new 2015 tyres. Unfortunately in the morning we got minimum running due to a suspension issue, which caused Max to run wide in turn 19 and crash into the barrier. The car was damaged and it took the whole morning to fix it, before we were able to get it back on track. However, despite this, it was a productive day. In the afternoon we concentrated on long run comparisons between 2014 and 2015 tyres and we have already learnt quite a bit in this area, but there is still a lot to do. We will now put together a programme for tomorrow, based on what we learned today.”

Max Verstappen:

“Unfortunately we didn’t get much running in the morning, but in the afternoon we carried out very useful long runs, which helped me with my understanding of how to manage the tyres. To be able to run the car for a longer period than just an hour and a half, which is all I had done so far when running in the FP1 sessions, was definitely a good experience and lap by lap, I got more used to the car. I’m looking forward to getting another day in the car tomorrow, to go on with the programme we started today.”