“I am very happy with the day. After a winter of ups and downs, the initial feedback here in Qatar was good. The evolution of the engine, which has not been revolutionised, proved to work well all around. It lets me ride with a style very close to my needs, whereas before I had to open up the throttle with the bike still very much leaned over. As for the race configuration, we are rather close to the leaders. We lost a few positions in the final attempt with a soft tyre. In the time attack, even pushing to the limit, we are still struggling to get as much out of the tyre compared to the other riders. We'll work especially on this in the technical debriefing today, because even though our pace is promising, we still cannot sacrifice qualifying.”

“The sessions today once again confirmed how close the times are this year. It really takes very little to make a big difference. I am satisfied with our first day. The evolved engine works well, but overall I feel like we can still improve quite a bit. Compared to the tests, I have less feeling with the front, even testing different compounds, and I feel the dips on the track more, so much that I risked locking up the front a couple of times. If I can increase my confidence in braking, I'm sure that we can take a step forward.”