The 22 drivers have their say on the opening day of running at Spa-Francorchamps.
McLaren
Sergio Perez: "Today we had a very good first session, but a more difficult second session.
"That was a bit of a surprise for us, because this morning the car felt very strong and very fast, and I was very happy with its balance. But this afternoon, as I say, it was a little less consistent.
"However, we've got a lot of information to analyse now, so as to understand what's going on with the car, in an effort to try to improve it and hopefully do a good job for tomorrow and Sunday.
"Hopefully, the weather will help us, because I personally would prefer there to be wet or variable conditions, which we know is always possible here at Spa!"
Jenson Button: "For me, FP1 was very good, and I was very happy with the car. The balance was good and I think our pace was good, too. I didn't push very hard in the wet sectors, but in the dry as I say it felt very good.
"This afternoon, however, it felt different. It's obviously a result of the warmer temperatures, and perhaps the wind also, so we've got a lot of work to do to understand why that is. Hopefully, we'll work it all out and things will be better for us by tomorrow.
"Having said all that, it's great to be back at Spa - the circuit is simply stunning! It's one of the best circuits for a driver, so fast and flowing. You have true racing fans here too, which is fantastic to see.
"Okay, the circuit is a bit unforgiving, but in a way I don't mind that. I think we've lost a bit of that element with some of the newer circuits we've seen arrive on the calendar over the past few years. The old classics are the ones that really remind me why I love this sport so much: here, Monza, Suzuka etc."
Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen: "I feel fine here today and the car was okay. It could have been a bit better, but it wasn't a disaster either so for sure we can improve a bit more for tomorrow. The weather wasn't great this morning and it's certainly better for us when it's dry.
"We had a little problem with the front wheel in the first session which meant we didn't run as much as we wanted to. The afternoon was pretty normal. For sure it looks like it will be a difficult weekend to beat Red Bull but that's what we must try to do if we want to catch them in the Championship."
Romain Grosjean: "It has been a busy day. We had planned to focus on evaluating our Device this morning, but with the changing atmospheric conditions we weren't able to 100% complete all the tests so with more rain forecast we decided to take it off for the afternoon to concentrate on a more normal programme with long runs.
"It wasn't that easy as we found it quite hard to make the tyres work the way we would like them to which meant that in the car the feeling might not have been so good, but timing-wise it was actually okay. The car felt pretty good and we'll work on this baseline to continue to improve. We'll wait to see what the weather will have in store for us."
Mercedes
Nico Rosberg: "It's great to be back at the Spa circuit, particularly as our car is more competitive this year, and it feels such an improvement to drive through the quick corners here. I'm not entirely sure where we are compared to the others but it looks like it will be quite a tough challenge and, of course, it is a completely different track here to at the last race.
"Today went pretty well for us though and it could be an interesting weekend, particularly with the mixed weather conditions that are predicted."
Lewis Hamilton: "We have some work ahead of us this evening to get the car feeling just right but overall today was a reasonable start to the weekend. The car feels very different here with the low downforce set-up, compared to at the last race, and we need to refine a few areas to get the balance sorted.
"We were able to get some good long run work done today and that's the most important thing for the race. We've got time to make the changes required so I'm optimistic that tomorrow will see an improvement."
Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg: "It was quite a tricky day with the mixed weather conditions this morning. We couldn't really get a full run on slicks. Sectors two and three were dry, but sector one was wet. I think there is still room for improvement. We still have some work to do on the set-up, as things can and have to be improved. I wasn't happy with the balance of the car. The tyres are behaving as usual: the medium compound is definitely quicker over one lap, as it provides more grip, but then we have to find out how long it will last during the race."
Esteban Gutierrez: "In the morning we had some running on a track that was wet and damp. We were able to run some aero tests, but, unfortunately, we didn't get through the whole programme. The qualifying simulation in the afternoon was not good. I lost part of the diffusor at the beginning of FP2, which impacted on performance. I'm not feeling very comfortable with the car. It's tricky driving the car on relatively low downforce, and the balance is not quite right. Now we have to analyse the data and see how we can improve that."
Force India
Adrian Sutil: "Quite an interesting day getting back in the car for the first time in almost a month. We were near the top of the times this morning in the damp session, but I had some balance issues to solve with the car so we made quite a few adjustments for this afternoon.
"When the sun came out the track conditions were very different so we tried some different downforce levels and need to choose the best approach for tomorrow. For the final few laps of the afternoon we made some progress and got the car closer to where we want it to be."
Paul Di Resta: "Conditions were mixed this morning, but it was much better this afternoon. It's safe to say that we seem to be further forward compared to where we were in Budapest and we always thought the car would be more suited to this track.
"At the moment it looks like we are in the mix for making the top ten, but we need to carry a bit more speed into qualifying. We know that the rain might come tomorrow, so we have to be ready to maximise the conditions."
Williams
Pastor Maldonado: "Today I was struggling to get the right balance in the car and there is still a lot of work we need to do to get us to where we want to be. We are not very far from unlocking more speed, but the others around us are also making gains which makes it difficult to close the gap. Nevertheless we will try to optimise what we have and adjust the set-up to find improvements in the balance ahead of the weekend."
Valtteri Bottas: "It was difficult to test anything in the first session because of the variable weather, with the track wet on one part of the circuit but dry on the other. The dry second session was more productive and we conducted some interesting tests so we will now be analysing the data from those to make improvements to the set-up for tomorrow. My car is currently more competitive on the prime tyre, and we still have work to do to improve the overall balance on the option tyre."
Toro Rosso
Jean-Eric Vergne: "It's really nice to be racing again after the break, especially at this fantastic track. Friday went very smoothly for us. The morning conditions were not ideal, as it was too wet for dry tyres and too dry for the rain tyres, but we still learnt something which could be useful later in the weekend, even if the tyres never got up to temperature.
"Then, we had a good FP2, with the car showing excellent pace over a single lap. The long run was a bit more difficult, but all the same, I feel we have a good car this weekend, whether we run in the dry or the wet. Probably one of the best first days I've had: there were no problems and the car seems to be working well."
Daniel Ricciardo: "Conditions this morning were the ones no one really likes, with part of the track dry and part wet. We ran on Intermediates, but the dry bits of the circuit meant the tyres got a bit chewed up. In the afternoon, we split the workload between the two cars. We tried a direction on my car that we believed would work, but unfortunately it didn't.
"However, the good news is that Jev seemed to be on the pace, so we can look at his data and get a useful compromise for both cars. I'm not happy to be down the bottom of the timesheet, but it's not a reason to be discouraged, because I feel we can deliver tomorrow and aim to get both cars well up the grid."
Caterham
Heikki Kovalainen: "It felt good to be back in the car and I'm pleased to see how it's developed since I last drove it in Barcelona. The whole package feels better balanced and generally it's a good overall improvement behind the wheel. There's a few things I could tell right away that are better - in general the ride has improved, there's much less pitching and the front in particular feels stronger.
"Against that, the braking stability doesn't feel great today, but that's something that can be worked on pretty simply in FP2. Overall I'm pleased I had more time in the car and can continue to help the team progress."
Charles Pic: "We went straight out in FP2 on the hard tyres and the car was ok but the main issue on run one was mid-to exit oversteer. We made a couple of mechanical changes for the second run but still had the oversteer issue but with more changes it had improved slightly for run three when we put the medium tyres on for the first time.
"The car was more calm on mid-to-exit but we found we had some issues on entry into the corners so for the long run we put on a bit more front wing and it did feel like we made some progress. We still need to make more improvements to the stability of the car on entry into the corners, but we can look at that more tonight, as well as keeping an eye on the weather forecast for tomorrow and even more for Sunday."
Giedo van der Garde: "FP1 was a good start to the weekend. We did the installation lap on wets but for run one we went onto inters but the track was drying out pretty quickly so they didn't last too long at all. It looks like quali and the race could both have similar weather conditions to FP1 so it's good to have that information logged, but then we went onto the hard dry tyres for run two, giving us more information that the engineers can work on tonight.
"In FP2 the weather had improved from the morning session but the car didn't feel great on the first run. We had a lot of oversteer on run one and not great traction so we made a change and went out for run two on the medium tyres. The first run on those was ok but we weren't really able to get everything out of the softer rubber so there's definitely more to come from the softer rubber.
"On the long run on the mediums the car felt pretty good, deg levels were ok but then in turn 15 the back end got loose and I unfortunately made contact with the barrier ending the session. We're not sure why that happened yet but we'll have a look at the data and investigate more tonight. Hopefully there's a lot more to come, so a usual busy Friday night and I think we can make progress tomorrow."
Marussia
Jules Bianchi: "The summer break seemed like an eternity for me so, on the whole, it is good to be back in the car and to get the second half of the season underway. It has been a little bit of a frustrating day today though, firstly with the weather making it difficult to get into the swing of things, although the experience in the wet may be useful later in the weekend. There is some work to do yet to get the car working better here but on paper this should be a circuit that suits us better than the last few races before the break."
Max Chilton: "I'm pleased with the way things started out for me today and with the progress we were making in FP1. The car was feeling good and the programme was working well. Things were looking promising for FP2 also but unfortunately we lost the last 30 minutes of the session because of a steering rack change. The guys worked hard to ensure I could get out at the end and so let's hope for a more straightforward day tomorrow to pick up on the positives from this morning."
