This region of Germany is not new to heatwaves, and today temperatures ranged just below and above the 30-degrees mark. In these hot conditions, Scuderia Ferrari drivers managed to progress through the respective run plans, which included using only the Soft tyre in the morning, before switching to different programmes for P2. Both ran on the Ultrasofts before Seb (4th fastest) tried a race simulation on the Mediums, while Kimi (5th) fitted the Softs. The SF71H car responded well through both sessions and now the night will be spent looking for improvements in view of tomorrow’s P3 and qualifying, which may be affected by a different kind of weather.
On a sweltering afternoon at the Hockenheimring, with an air temperature of 31 degrees Celsius and the track at 52 degrees, most of the session was dedicated to evaluating tyre performance ahead of Sunday’s race.
“Friday is the only day that we can use as a test” – Kimi said, at the end of the second free practice session in Germany – “trying a lot of things and different solutions. It was a very normal day and later this evening we‘ll analyze what we have learned today and put things together for qualifying. Tomorrow the conditions might be a bit different from today and a bit more tricky. On Sunday if the weather stays warm like it was today, for sure it will be challenging for the tires; it’s going to be more similar to Austria, with a limit on the tyres, and whoever makes the best job in managing them is going to have some advantage. So far we have been reasonably strong in most places, we’ll see how it goes here; it looks pretty close.” – Scuderia Ferrari Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen concluded, as reported by the Maranello team’s official website.
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