Ocon still seeking qualifying pace improvement

What they say

Ocon’s team mate Daniel Ricciardo was comfortably the quicker of the two on Friday:

It’s good to see that we can have the potential. On our car we struggled a little bit just to find the right balance, the right rhythm, struggling on our side to get that at the moment. So the work continues from Silverstone.

We need to get that one lap pace better. We still didn’t do it yet. So we need to have a good look tonight to manage to turn it around tomorrow.

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

According to the @FIA and @F1, none of the people connected with the sport tested positive for Covid-19 over the past week. There were 5,467 tests conducted. #F1 #SpanishGP

— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) August 14, 2020

• Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory

Links

More motor racing links of interest:

Mercedes sets the pace on Friday in Barcelona (Mercedes)

"The long-run is more of a challenge and the area we need to work on tonight. The story looks similar to recent races; we’re reasonable compared to all cars except Verstappen – with him it looks very close."

Ilott heads Shwartzman in Barcelona for second successive pole (F2)

"Championship leader Callum Ilott sealed his second successive pole position in Formula 2, ahead of title rival Robert Shwartzman."

Sargeant beats out Hughes in Barcelona for his third pole in a row (F3)

"Prema's Logan Sargeant took his third successive Formula 3 pole position in qualifying at Barcelona, finishing one tenth quicker than the continually improving HWA of Jake Hughes, with Hitech’s Liam Lawson in third, another 0.1s off."

Friday Practice Recap (Haas)

Guenther Steiner: "These have been our best Friday sessions this year. This kind of circuit, where there’s less high-speed sectors, it helps us as it’s a lot less power sensitive. We’ve always been relatively good here in Barcelona, I don’t know the reason why. I was cautiously optimistic in testing at the beginning of the year, and this shows that I wasn’t wrong."

F1 legend Alonso excited to be back at Indy with new team, team mates (IndyCar)

"This year with the boost change for the qualifying, there is no really big point doing anything for qualifying before Friday because it’s going to be a big change of power. At the moment, we are ticking off the boxes."

Fernando official trailer (Amazon via YouTube)

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Comment of the day

Given Ferrari’s secret deal with the FIA earlier this year, team principal Mattia Binotto’s call for greater “transparency” over the Racing Point row prompted some amused responses:

Good message, worst people to deliver it. Coming from anyone else it would be 100% right but coming from them it looks like ‘do as I say but not as I do’.

Shame, because clarity and transparency over this issue is totally needed but Ferrari being champions of it is completely laughable.
Adam (@rocketpanda)

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On this day in F1

• 50 years ago today home favourite Jochen Rindt took pole position for the first round of the world championship to be held at the Osterreichring (now the Red Bull Ring)