The 10th round of the 2020 FIA Formula One World Championship began with practice on Friday at the Sochi Autodrom as teams prepared for Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix.
Two 90-minute sessions – FP1 and FP2 – on the 5.848-kilometer (3.634-mile), 18-turn circuit were held under mostly sunny skies at the Sochi Olympic Park.
Grosjean and Magnussen both started FP1 on the Pirelli P Zero Red soft tire. Magnussen promptly set his fastest time of the session on the softs with a 1:37.430 lap – 16th fastest overall. They switched strategies after their opening runs with Grosjean on the Yellow medium rubber and Magnussen selecting the White hard compound. Their baseline stints were marred thanks to a brief red flag stop for the crashed Williams of Nicholas Latifi. Magnussen abandoned his planned run, opting to go straight into a high-fuel outing to finish his program. Grosjean returned on low-fuel and set his best lap of 1:37.649, on the mediums, to place 18th. He wrapped up FP1 with a short high-fuel stretch.
Grosjean kicked off FP2 with an eight-lap taste of the hard rubber with Magnussen running mediums for a seven-lap tour. They bolted on fresh sets of soft tires respectively for their qualifying simulations. A 1:35.729 proved to be Magnussen’s quickest time of the session placing the Dane 18th at the checkered. Grosjean clocked a 1:36.858 – the Frenchman 20th on the timesheet. The afternoon run plan concluded with high-fuel, long-distance runs.
Haas F1 Team ran a total of 110 laps on Friday across FP1 and FP2 – 56 by Grosjean and 54 by Magnussen.
Next Up:
Saturday September 26 – Final practice runs 12:00–13:00 local time before Russian Grand Prix qualifying 15:00–16:00.
Haas F1 Team PR
