Charles analyses the Friday in Mexico

Published on 31 October 2015 by Niels Hendrix

Phil Charles, chief race engineer of Scuderia Toro Rosso, says after the Friday in Mexico: “We are pleased with this morning’s FP1 – we targeted keeping the drivers on track to maximise their familiarisation with this new circuit and this approach was working quite well. In fact Max did a very good lap towards the end of the session and was looking very good.” 

“Unfortunately, in FP2 he had an off at the start of the session. The car is not too badly damaged and I am sure he will be back on form tomorrow. As a result of Max’s off it was necessary for Carlos to take up the extra workload in our programmes. So he did plenty of mileage again in FP2; we were prompt getting him out on the short runs and he completed plenty of laps on the long run.” 

“We’ve learned quite a lot today, but I think it is no secret that brakes and engine cooling are more difficult here with the low ambient pressures. The factory gave us some good support between the sessions to help in both respects but we will still have to do some further work with our car configuration tonight to ensure we have a margin for Sunday’s race.” 

“The weather forecasts are also looking quite interesting for the rest of the weekend, with possible rain. Overall, it’s has been a bit of a scrappy day but we’ve ticked-off a lot of the boxes in our program targets.”

Click here to participate in a contest for the Mexican GP and win an STR softshell jacket!