Berman: I'm comfortable behind the wheel of the VF-25, and that's the most important thing.

      Oliver Bearman drove his first race for Haas F1 a year ago in Baku and immediately finished in the top ten. In today's Friday practice sessions on the challenging street circuit he also looked good, ending the day fifth. Esteban Ocon posted the eighth fastest time.

      Oliver Bearman (5th): "My lap time was very good, and the car worked well all day. In the first session we were a bit short of top speed on the straights, but in the second practice we managed to increase it, and it looks like we can fight for strong results. I'm comfortable in the VF-25, and that's the most important thing, so now we need to work properly to have everything ready for tomorrow's qualifying."

      Esteban Ocon (8th): "From the first practice we saw that the level of grip is quite normal, and we were able to try many different setup options while working with two cars. Now we need to choose what will best suit tomorrow's tasks. I know that in certain aspects we don't reach the required level, but the car handles the corners quite well. Preparing for qualifying, in the second practice we worked with different tyre compounds — I ran on the softs, while Oliver used Medium, and now we need to analyse all the collected information, and we'll see what the engineers say and which choice they consider best."

      Aio Komatsu, team principal: "Friday went fine — I think we handled the task well and got a lot of information from the drivers. The second session, because of a problem with Oliver's car, did not go perfectly, but nonetheless we collected the necessary amount of data and will have something to analyse this evening. We need to choose the optimal chassis configuration, fine-tune everything and, during tomorrow morning's practice, work out the tyre behaviour, after which we'll try to deliver the best possible result in qualifying."