Manor satisfied to move ahead of Sauber
Manor's new package seems to be working well, as its two drivers were able to get ahead of the two Saubers in the second session.
Discreet since the start of the season, the Manors seem to be making progress with the new aerodynamic package brought to Barcelona. To see the evolution it brings, we can compare the performances from the first and second sessions since the new package was only installed for the afternoon session, as explained by Rio Haryanto: “In FP1, we used the old specification, before switching to the new package in FP2. It worked well, even though it’s just the beginning and we still need to fine-tune it. But I’m happy so far.”
The difference is significant since the two single-seaters occupied the last rank (except for the unfortunate Esteban Ocon) while they managed to be 18th and 19th in the second session, clearly ahead of the Saubers of Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson.
One of the positive points is also that this new set seems to degrade the tires less than its predecessor. This could only please Pascal Wehrlein: « I think we have seen some good early signs with our new developments today, but we will only have a complete picture tomorrow when everyone has switched to softs. For us, we saw a good progression between the mediums and softs, but we still have some balance issues that we need to address. So far, it seems that we don’t have the same degradation problems that we’ve experienced since the beginning of the year. This is a positive sign. »
