End-of-day report. Friday. Sepang. Second free practice.
Observation. Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin finishes fifteenth. Lance Stroll’s, eighteenth. I give the positions, not opinions.
Next observation, more interesting. The driver gets out of the car and is asked questions straight away. He answered: “I don’t know, I’ve just got out of the car, I haven’t had time to see anything.” He added that these interviews are compulsory and that there is no time to see anything.
I understand. At post 14, nobody asks me for my report while I fold the flag. The camping chair goes away. The thermos is emptied. The sandwich, which has waited since six o’clock, is eaten. Then one writes. A report written before the sandwich is not a report, it is an impression.
The heated room, for its part, has forty-seven cameras and takes its time. It is often blamed for that. Here I note that a driver asks for the same thing as the room, a little time to look, and is not given it.
Summary relayed by the team consultant, Pedro de la Rosa: two decent sessions, Friday programme completed. He said work remained, “notably the balance of the car on Lance’s side”. The driver of the fifteenth car seemed fairly happy with his balance. He mainly reports a low-grip tarmac, common to all.
The driver of the eighteenth car did not take part in the interviews. Noted.
Your correspondent has always typed his copy on Sunday evening, never on stepping off the coach.
Post 14, received. Nothing further to report.
It’s true, we checked: Nextgen-Auto.
