Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

Jeder Fahrer träumt davon, nach Monaco zu kommen und ein Auto zu haben, mit dem er sein Können unter Beweis stellen kann. Ich bin sehr stolz auf das Team und natürlich ist es unser Ziel, an diesem Wochenende etwas sehr Positives zu erreichen. Wir haben im Verlauf der beiden Trainings einige kleinere Veränderungen am Auto vorgenommen, aber alles in allem war ich mit dem Setup zufrieden. Hier wird es jedes Jahr schneller und man merkt es richtiggehend, wenn man an den Leitplanken vorbeirauscht. In Kurve zwölf nimmt man richtig viel Geschwindigkeit mit und dann erscheint auf einmal die Mauer direkt vor dir – genauso bergauf vor dem Casino. Es ist unheimlich intensiv und man muss wahnsinnig konzentriert sein.

Das war heute ein guter Tag auf der Strecke. In den vergangenen Jahren war das Auto hier manchmal schwierig zu fahren, aber heute war es sehr fahrbar, reagierte gut und es machte Spaß, damit zu fahren. Auf diesem Kurs musst du das Limit ausloten und ich fühlte mich wohl dabei, bis an die Grenzen zu gehen – das ist ein gutes Zeichen. Jetzt müssen wir noch Feintuning am Setup betreiben und sicherstellen, dass wir uns weiter in die richtige Richtung bewegen. Ich glaube, dass wir auf dem richtigen Bein ins Wochenende gestartet sind, aber in Monaco kann bekanntlich alles passieren.

“I decided to use a helmet dedicated to Niki. Being a tribute to him, as a person and to his career, the design is based on his last Ferrari helmet. I thought that maybe it was nice to take him along for a final couple of laps around Monaco. Talking about our performance we are struggling a bit, we are lacking some pace compared to our main rivals. We are still not happy with how the tyres work. I think we have a bit of work ahead of us. In terms of balance we can still improve on everything. We will work in order to have a car that is more predictable. I am sure on Saturday the situation should improve and maybe it will be also warmer, which could help us.”

“It was a good day and I’m really happy. FP1 was a little difficult, but we made some changes for FP2 and I felt a lot better in the car, even in the long runs. As we expected, Mercedes are really fast and quite a long way ahead of us, but we can see we’re in a fight with Ferrari. If it’s raining on Saturday then anyone has a chance, but the Team is usually pretty strong here. There is still some work to do but hopefully we can find even more performance for Saturday, when it’s all about qualifying and getting a good starting position. We’ll do everything we can.”

“It was a good day for us, it’s really fun out there and I like the track a lot. I think we got the car in the right window, now we just need to study what we’ve learnt from today, so we can fine-tune the car and get ready for Saturday. We made a couple of adjustments for the afternoon session and I like how the car feels. We’re cautious that other teams will improve for Saturday but finishing in the top five is a nice feeling.”

“Today was ok and I’m pretty happy with the balance of the car. In FP2 when everyone went onto a second set of tyres we had a water leak after some debris flew into the air box and damaged one of the radiators. We had to fix it which lost us some time on track but in general, we look alright and the pace was pretty good. I got enough laps in to feel confident with the car, we tried lots of set-up changes in both sessions and I’m happy with what we have. Mercedes is still very strong and I don’t think we can fight them for pole, but there is a big gap between second and third which we should be able to fill in qualifying tomorrow.”

“We lost a bit of running in FP1 due to a telemetry problem, but got running again, and got all our low-fuel work done. That allowed me to get a good feeling for the car. We missed out on a few high-fuel laps, but we got them in FP2, so it wasn’t too bad of a Thursday. Between us we also ran on all the tire compounds today, so that’s good. The car feels good in low-fuel, so we’ll see what we can do for tire management. It’s a tough track to overtake on, so it’s not the main priority, but of course we want to be fast in race runs. So far everything’s going okay, and hopefully Q3’s a possibility.”

“I am happy about today’s work. The first time in an F1 car around Monaco can be a bit daunting, but I got into a rhythm quickly and was able to enjoy the sessions. There isn’t a lot between all the teams so we will need to make some more improvement tonight to stay in the top 10.”

Three quotes, a multiple-choice quiz. A, B or C – what has Kimi REALLY said after Free Practice 1 and 2 today? Option A “I had been looking forward to today’s sessions since the moment I woke up. It’s the start of my 300th race weekend in Formula One and I want to savour every moment, remember every face. When I got to the garage and sat in my car, I struggled to hold back my emotions. My race engineer, Julian, had to remind me it’s a race like any other and to focus on my job, but I think I may have shed a tear or two when I drove out of the garage.” Option B “I am not unhappy with the first two practice sessions. It was better than expected, but we still have a lot of work to do to get the best out of the car.” Option C “Bwoah.”

“We have some work to do before returning to the track on Saturday. The first session was ok and I felt quite comfortable in the car. It was more difficult to put the car and the tyres in the right window in the afternoon, and we were also held up by traffic. Nevertheless, our competitors are strong and we have to push to close the gap in qualifying. We will give it everything and I can’t wait to be back in the car.”

“It’s been a good day. We didn’t really know what to expect coming here – obviously, last year here, it wasn’t our strongest race. I was open-minded to what we could get. I’m quite happy with the way the car was. We possibly didn’t quite choose the right set-up for FP2, but we tried something which was interesting. Now we can analyze all the data for Saturday. I think we should be in the mix for a good qualifying.”

“Overall not a bad day, not perfect and a bit messy. I had a lock-up in FP1 which made me lose quite a few laps and I couldn’t do all the running we’d planned, but we still maximised the session and did some aero runs instead. “We made a decent improvement between sessions and FP2 was much better, so I’m happy with what we achieved. But there’s still a lot of work to do, and we need to make sure we make some more positive changes so that we can be at the front of the midfield.”

“Well, obviously it hasn’t been an ideal Thursday in Monaco. Missing out the whole of FP1 isn’t the way you want to start a Monaco Grand Prix, but the mechanics made a great effort to change the ES pack and get me back out at the end of the session, just to do one lap and see how everything felt. “FP2 went better but obviously I am 30-40 laps behind my competitors and there are things to improve on the car. It’s important to get up to speed little-by-little, so we need to be intelligent when recovering the time lost. Quali is what really matters and there is still margin to work and improve.”

“I think from my side today was quite good. We completed everything we had planned for the day, but I think there’s still something missing and there’s quite a bit of time left to find. We will work hard to understand what we can do to improve so we’re in the fight for Saturday.”

“We completed lots of laps today, but I haven’t found the Monaco rhythm just yet and I think that shows in our performance today. We need to find a good step if we want to be in the fight for Q3 so there’s a big night ahead of us and we need to make good use of the extra day tomorrow. The car doesn’t feel too bad – the balance is okay, but we are still on the back foot. With some fine-tuning we can definitely make things better. Understanding the data and making good decisions is a real strength of this team so I’m confident we can be in a better position by Saturday afternoon”

“Today seemed to go OK, especially in the morning session. In the afternoon, on my short run on the Soft tyre, we were interrupted with a lot of traffic so there was certainly more left in that. Monaco is always interesting and different to the usual race weekend and it’s good to have a day off tomorrow to go through all the data and find the best set-up for the next couple of days. I’m feeling comfortable, the base feels good, but there’s work to do here and there.”

“I felt relatively comfortable in the morning and I was pleased that we got up to speed quite quickly. However, we didn’t make the step we needed in the afternoon. We did make some changes, but maybe they didn’t help as well as we’d have liked. Following the afternoon session, we have a bit more homework to do to really find that extra bit. As ever around Monaco, it’s awesome to be back driving a Formula 1 car on these streets. That’s always special.”

“It’s not been the easiest day. We took things steady this morning and tried to build up our speed gradually, but the car isn’t where we need it to be just yet. We’re missing some speed so we need to work hard tonight and tomorrow to understand where we can make some improvements.”

Today was pretty cool and such a thrill to be driving around these streets in a Formula One car. I had fun out there especially on the low fuel, trying to get the most out of it was good experience. The car is not in the perfect window, on a track like this it punishes you a bit more. Monaco is a very unique place and we knew it was going to be tricky.

I was looking forward to getting back into the car in Monaco. Of course, with the lack of grip and struggling with general downforce, the streets are not the easiest to drive. The positive from returning here after nine years was that I jumped into the car and the opening laps were not too bad. However, when the pace picks up, it will be more difficult for us. We have to balance risk with keeping it tidy and steady.