Lucas Di Grassi - #1 Audi Sport Team Joest
“We had a brief issue in the first session today but recovered well to be in P4. We know it will be tough again for us this weekend but we are pushing to achieve the maximum we can once again. The last time I was here was in 2010 in F1. It will be very interesting to race with the lights but from what I see and also hear from people the track will have near perfect visibility.”
Richard Bradley - #47 KCMG Oreca-Nissan
“I raced at Singapore under the lights and they were brighter than here at Bahrain. Still the floodlights are very efficient and you can see everything really clearly. It is nice to see the Spirit of Le Mans here in the desert. It looks cool and personally I would love to see all the races at night. I love racing in the dark and I think it the fans and TV enjoy it too. The race will be spectacular.”
Nathanaël Berthon - #9 Lotus CLM-AER
“Obviously it has been a frustrating day for the team. For my personally it is tough too as at least Simon got a few laps. The team worked hard to get the gearbox changed and did a great job. We have much more work to do of course but I am looking forward to making my FIA WEC debut after racing here in Bahrain a few times in GP2.”
Gianmaria Bruni - #51 AF Corse Ferrari
“It was a step up from FP1 for us but we have more to come tomorrow for sure. We still need to work a bit more on set-up but considering what happened at Shanghai we are looking ok. The lights are very good here, very clear and bright.”
Fernando Rees - #99 Aston Martin Racing
“I think the view at night with the flood lights here is almost as good as in the day. The lights really do a nice job and you almost think you could drive with the headlights off! I think one of the keys to the race will be the track conditions in terms of how the racing line will be, especially in sector three. What happened last year was that as the race wore on the line got cleaned up by the traffic. The fastest laps were generally set toward the end of the race. If that continues in the dark then it will make for some great racing in the closing stages I’m sure.”
Nicki Thiim - #95 Aston Martin Racing
“The air temperature at night helps the engine of course but also the tyre compounds are affected on how they work so we were doing lots of evaluation in the session tonight in readiness for the race. We changed a few things on the car as we experienced some issues with the hard compound tyres. Visibility wise the lights are amazing. You don’t even realise it is dark. There are no problems seeing any of the apex’s so it amazing as a driver to experience this level of illumination on the track. Very spectacular.”
Paul Dalla Lana - #98 Aston Martin Racing
“It has been a big learning curve in free practice today as it is my first visit here to Bahrain. It seems to be a real finesse type of circuit so it will be interesting to get many more laps under my belt in the rest of the practice we get tomorrow. The pressure (for the title) is there of course. We need some luck but the rivalry we have with the #95 guys is healthy and so far good natured. I am sure it will stay that way as we have respect for each other.”
Sam Smith
Photos: 1) Nathanael Berthon of Lotus, 2) Nicki Thiim of Aston Martin Racing
