Japanese Grand Prix 2018: Practice 1 team radio
49 radio messages were recorded during practice 1 at the Japanese Grand Prix 2018, across 16 drivers. 48 of them have a transcript; the rest are audio only. Daniel RICCIARDO had the most, with 9.
These are transcripts of real team radio audio, produced by speech recognition and presented as an archive rather than as edited prose. Radio is clipped and noisy, so wording can be imperfect. Each message is attributed to the driver or their engineer, and the original audio is playable in the archive.
Who was on the radio
- Daniel RICCIARDO · Red Bull · 9 messages
- Esteban OCON · Force India · 5 messages
- Kimi RAIKKONEN · Ferrari · 4 messages
- Brendon HARTLEY · Toro Rosso · 4 messages
- Lando NORRIS · McLaren · 4 messages
- Sergio PEREZ · Force India · 3 messages
- Lewis HAMILTON · Mercedes · 3 messages
- Fernando ALONSO · McLaren · 3 messages
- Pierre GASLY · Toro Rosso · 3 messages
- Sergey SIROTKIN · Williams · 2 messages
- Max VERSTAPPEN · Red Bull · 2 messages
- Valtteri BOTTAS · Mercedes · 2 messages
- Lance STROLL · Williams · 2 messages
- Carlos SAINZ · Renault · 1 message
- Sebastian VETTEL · Ferrari · 1 message
- Romain GROSJEAN · Haas · 1 message
Every message, in the order it happened
Engineer: OK, so it will be two burnouts.
Engineer: If we prepare the next VLIM, exit of turn 14, so that's VLIM 2, 214, 6th gear, exit of 14, you can hold it through 15.
Kimi RAIKKONEN: You can change the gearbox if you'd like.
Engineer: How was the bounce?
Daniel RICCIARDO: Yeah, not too bad. Probably more on the understeer side. But, yeah, more on the understeer I guess.
Engineer: Okay, understood.
Engineer: We'll go to charge 6 please, charge 6, battery is a bit low, and we'll go reverse off.
Engineer: OK, reverse on, reverse on, try and top up the battery a little bit more this time. Your front temperatures to start that last lap were identical to the first time for info. Any change in the balance? OK,
Daniel RICCIARDO: very similar.
Engineer: Just keeping on your temperatures that you can afford to bring them down a little bit
Engineer: Check your tyre is okay, it will be practice, you clear ahead, practice.
Engineer: I will box this lap, keep up a reasonable pace on the way and please keep a bit of temperature in the tyres.
Audio only, no transcript available for this message.
Daniel RICCIARDO: Yeah, so the trend was increasing the balance I had.
Engineer: Okay, understood.
Engineer: Okay, Max, box and confirm, please. Box, pick and confirm.
Engineer: So a little bit of brake temp but cool tyres somewhat.
Engineer: In cool, in cool, box this lap, box, box, pits confirm, white button is latched, Esteban 25 behind will be fast.
Engineer: Okay, so it'll be a start, just remember the location.
Engineer: You can use K1 to open the lap, K1 to open the lap, and you can push, track is clear.
Engineer: Check the engine, I had a little bit of loss of power before turn 1. It was a clip, going to recharge, we'll have a look. Copy. It was before I had the recharge. OK, back to constant speed 1, on torque 1. Yep, all good now.
Engineer: Yeah, the tyres were a lot too hot starting the lap, so I needed a slow cool down. Copy that. Yeah, so I had some instability at the entry at the high speeds, going to an understeer mid-corner, but the entries were quite loose.
Engineer: Do you want to try more front wing?
Lando NORRIS: Yeah, definitely more front wing, another two and a half holes or something, two holes
Engineer: Copy
Engineer: So the main loss to Valtteri, two tenths into turn one.
Engineer: We just need a couple of good stops to get some energy into the brakes.
Engineer: And we will pass through the pit lane for a start. We don't need burnout, so we'll be landbound race and K2 on. We'll be crash attuation, buy point, crash attuation, K2 on and start with one red.
Lando NORRIS: What areas do I need to improve on?
Engineer: Last lap obviously you lost Well over half a second exit the final chicane Could be a little time to find entry turn one turn two between turn one turn two
Daniel RICCIARDO: I feel they've been on a bit of a knife edge the whole time, those axles, but they're hanging on.
Engineer: That'll be bipod find, launch, second gear, target 37.
Engineer: Ok Fernando, you're the only car out on track so drive the outlap as you want it and lots of brake warm up please.
Engineer: And all tyre temperatures are reading correctly.
Engineer: So we had Alonso through the gravel at turn 9, so just be careful, you've probably dragged a load of stuff onto the track there.
Engineer: Is
Lewis HAMILTON: it looking cleaner into 8?
Engineer: We've probably had about another 5 cars go through.
Lando NORRIS: Tires feel like they've gone off already slightly, I'm happy to box now and do the next run, unless you want me to do another one.
Engineer: OK, if you're confident with where the car is, let's box now, we'll get into the change. Box to slap.
Lando NORRIS: Copy, box to slap.
Engineer: OK, we can try again, we're going on with the times, we'll target plus 50 seconds, plus 5.0 again, that's plus 10 on the delta, it's just trying to drop as much rear as we can, which is proving quite difficult, so on the straights, we don't need to go to full throttle, we can just take it easy on the straights.
Engineer: I think it's going to be a traffic jam into the final corner so we can drop back.
Pierre GASLY: Yeah, I don't know why I had a massive snap. I lost in big time.
Engineer: Are you okay to keep going or you want to box?
Pierre GASLY: No, I'm okay, I'm okay.
Engineer: Can you describe what happened when you went out?
Pierre GASLY: The break went through, I just turned in and I had
Engineer: a
Pierre GASLY: massive snap. Like the rear completely stepped away.
Engineer: What's the main limitation, Brennan?
Brendon HARTLEY: Yes, stability started to get better, watch out McLaren, I understand it was there.
Engineer: I
Brendon HARTLEY: think that this entry, sorry, this engine brake up was better for the mid-corner. But I started losing the tyres too much.
Engineer: Think about roll stiffness, box-box, pit entry test and box.
Brendon HARTLEY: Copy.
Engineer: I'll also behind this face to you, face to you.
Esteban OCON: Yeah, check front wing, because of the last chicane, the kerbs.
Engineer: Copy that, will do.
Engineer: And engine 6, give me engine 6.
Engineer: And Fernando positioning wise the front was in the middle but the rear was towards the garage so you're facing out towards the pit lane the rear was about 20 centimeters to the right
Kimi RAIKKONEN: Box system.
Engineer: Copy, copy, box.
Engineer: We need a bit of weaving, we need a bit of weaving, high speed weaving.
Esteban OCON: So front wing was fine, yeah?
Engineer: Yep, front wing was fine, yes.
Engineer: Lando suggest, let's try some continuous laps, suggest to try some continuous laps as the tyre seems like there's not much left in it for push-cool-push. Okay copy. So let's do scenario eight, scenario eight and sock seven, scenario eight sock seven. And remember left-hand side toggle sector one, left-hand side toggle for sector one.
Engineer: And we need to synchronize 8th gear in the back straight before the chicane, synchronize 8th gear.
Pierre GASLY: But with the recharge I cannot go up to 8th.
Engineer: We can do short shift, we can do short shift to 8th.
Engineer: How are the tyres, Daniel? How are the tyres?
Daniel RICCIARDO: Yeah, very similar to the soft.
Engineer: How's the balance?
Esteban OCON: Understeer made oversteer exit.
Engineer: Fifth gear through the S's is better like you did last lap, fifth lap.
Engineer: So on this lap just focus on topping up the battery ready for the next session
Daniel RICCIARDO: Understood
Esteban OCON: The portal is taking a tour around Suzuka Holiday tour
Engineer: Box, box, pit confirm. We will do a pit stop. We will stack. Your teammate is 20 seconds ahead.
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