Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

“Overall, we had quite a productive day and completed a lot of tests around the set-up. The feeling in the car was good. It was a bit tricky with the wind changing direction, especially in FP2, which made it more challenging to predict what would happen in the corners. Although we have been fast today, we will work hard to take another step forward. On my side, as I did in France, I also have to focus on setting up the car in the best way to follow the track evolution in qualifying. I think we made the best out of it and I look forward to seeing where we stand tomorrow.”

Das war ein ziemlich harter Einschlag für mich im zweiten Training, aber ich bin okay und habe keinerlei Schmerzen. Heute Nachmittag gab es ein paar Windböen und ich glaube, dass mich eine davon erwischt hat. Die Kurven sind hier sehr knifflig und es wird sofort bestraft, wenn man auch nur einen kleinen Fehler macht. Aber ich bevorzuge so eine Strecke, die Fehler auch bestraft. So gefällt mir das und es sorgt für noch mehr Spannung. Vor dem Abflug hatte ich am Vormittag Schwierigkeiten mit dem Motor, weshalb ich das erste Training mit dem alten fahren musste. Das hat mich etwas eingeschränkt, aber wir haben beim Setup trotzdem eine klare Richtung gefunden. Vor dem zweiten Training haben wir einige ziemlich große Veränderungen vorgenommen und danach fühlte sich das Auto bis zum Unfall viel besser an. Alles in allem habe ich ein gutes Gefühl mit Blick auf die Fahrzeugperformance, aber die anderen Teams sind hier auch schnell. An diesem Wochenende wird es sehr heiß, besonders am Sonntag. Dadurch kommen die Autos bei der Kühlung der Bremsen und des Motors bis an ihre Grenzen. Ich glaube, dass es in den Zeitenlisten sehr eng zugehen wird – uns sollte also ein spannendes Qualifying erwarten.

“From this morning in FP1, I felt good with the car and I was able to push, so today was positive. I felt a lot more comfortable than in France and I think we have a good direction. There was quite a lot happening in FP2 but we still managed to complete all the tests we wanted to. The conditions are really hot and it’s quite windy which makes things tricky, and I think the rising temperatures are the main thing we need to keep on top of looking ahead to Sunday. The kerbs are also proving quite expensive as they’re breaking a lot of the cars! We look quite good on the timesheet with third, but we’re still four tenths off Ferrari so we need to stay focused and try to find some more pace from our package for tomorrow. Looking at our long runs, they were a bit messy and not that clean, so we will look at that a bit more closely and decide what is the best strategy for Sunday.”

Ich hatte einen sauberen Tag, ohne größere Schwierigkeiten, obwohl ich wie viele andere Fahrer auch einige Frontflügel auf den Kerbs beschädigt habe. In diesem Jahr fahren wir für einen Großteil der Strecke Vollgas – selbst die Kurven sechs, sieben und neun sowie die Zielkurve sind mit diesen Autos wahnsinnig schnell. Deshalb haben wir den gesamten Tag daran gearbeitet, das Setup zu perfektionieren. Ferrari und Red Bull sehen schnell aus, allen voran Ferrari. Es wird also interessant, zu sehen, wie es sich morgen entwickelt. Auf dieser Strecke liegen die Rundenzeiten immer unheimlich eng zusammen und selbst kleinste Abstände können den Unterschied ausmachen. Das finde ich gut, weil wir dadurch härter arbeiten müssen. Aber das ist in Ordnung: wir werden weiter kämpfen und auf diesem Kurs kann man anderen Autos auch folgen. Hoffentlich halten die Reifen das durch.

“Another good Friday. It’s always good news to finish again in the top 10 – today top seven – cars, even though it is only practice. My run plan has been more race-biased than normal today, as obviously we’re trying to prepare for the race knowing that I’m going to take a penalty for Sunday. “Even so, the only short run I did looked competitive, which I guess today only makes the penalty feel a bit more painful. However, it is what it is, and there’s no point losing energy on that. My focus is on the race and our long runs also looked decent, so I prefer to look on the bright side and keep preparing for Sunday.”

“It’s been a good day. I think overall, we’re happy with the car. We’ve made some progress and are working in a good direction – so that’s a positive. It’s super tight here, very few corners. It’s quite exciting to fight with the boys. There are a few spots here where you can make up some lap time. We kept the car out of trouble, but we got a bit unlucky in FP2 with our first set of medium tires. There was a massive cut on them, we couldn’t run them again in the session on the long run. That wasn’t ideal, as I guess it’s a tire you want to have some information on. Anyway, it is what it is, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

„Es hatte heute ein wenig von einem Stopp-Start-Tag. Vor allem nachmittags wegen der roten Flaggen. So ist das halt manchmal. Es ist für alle gleich, und wir müssen das Beste daraus machen – völlig unabhängig von den Umständen. Das Auto fühlte sich während des zweiten Trainings besser an. Aber das ist kein Grund abzuheben. Es ist viel zu früh, sagen zu können, wo wir im Vergleich zu unseren Konkurrenten stehen, denn das werden wir erst morgen und im Rennen herausfinden. Auf jeden Fall müssen wir daran arbeiten, die Dinge vor dem Qualifying zu verbessern.“

“My off-track excursion didn’t have a big effect on our programme, other than that we couldn’t do the long run on the softs. I was able to stop in time and did not damage the car. We are still trying a lot of things and getting closer. Hopefully tomorrow we can do better than today. It was a bit tricky in the afternoon with the windy conditions. We didn’t actually try new updates, we ran the same parts as last weekend to be able to learn more about them and I think it was successful. Now we need time to understand what to address next. Our balance in the corners is not bad, we can still improve the car and we tried a few things in the afternoon. Maybe the track layout helps us a bit, but this remains a tricky track where it is crucial to have a good feeling in the car and that’s what we have to work on now.”

“My feeling in the car was good and we looked quite competitive. Of course, you always want to do better but my laps were looking quite good before the crash. I had traffic on my fastest lap so we would be a lot closer than my lap time shows. The car was working well, we still need to find a bit of a compromise between the corners and the straightline speed but we will look at that tonight. It was very gusty and the wind wasn’t consistent which caught me out in the middle of the last corner. I lost the rear and hit the barrier pretty hard. Luckily, everything is fixable and it’s Friday so we’re not running all the race material yet. It’s just a shame for the Team as they have a lot on tonight now. It’s hard to say where we are in terms of overall performance as Mercedes didn’t do their performance laps, so I am of course a bit cautious, but from my feeling the whole car was working well today which is a positive.”

“On the whole, a reasonable Friday. It could’ve been a little better, and it wasn’t the cleanest of days with a few red flags here and there which changed everything around a bit. But we got a good understanding of the car: where it’s weak, where it’s strong, areas we need to improve. Overall, that’s the main thing. “I focused a bit more on long running today, something I didn’t really do at Paul Ricard, and that helped me to get an understanding of the race balance for Sunday. We’re going to have look over things tonight and see how to improve the car for tomorrow.”

“I think it was a productive day. We got through everything, while a lot of people made mistakes – went off, we didn’t, we stayed on track and learned the things we should. I think it’ll be an interesting evening to go through everything and see what can be done for tomorrow. The temperatures were very high, it’s looking like it’s a little easier to manage for all the teams, not only us, than it was in Paul Ricard. The grip is a bit more consistent here, you don’t have the patches of poor grip like we had in France. We have to get the maximum out of what we have, and that’s what we’re going to work on tonight.”

“I’m feeling positive. The hot conditions today are similar to those we expect for the race and we’ve done some important homework and collected lots of information. I think everybody will try and do a one-stop race on Sunday, but the high track temperatures will make this quite challenging. With such a short circuit here in Austria, the priority tomorrow is putting together a clean and tidy lap because if you lose a tenth here, it’s more costly than some other tracks.”

“Obviously, we had a different mindset coming into this weekend as we knew we’re starting from the back. We’re still testing options to understand which direction we need to take after Paul Ricard – we made some improvements, but we still feel we’re lacking a bit. On the other hand, our long-run pace, which is what I need to focus on, was very strong. So, I have some mixed feelings from today, we’re quite happy with the car for the race but we still want to understand the car and unlock its potential in the short run pace.”

„Ich war mit der Balance des Autos recht zufrieden, auch wenn es nachmittags schwer war, alles auf den Punkt zu bringen. Die beiden Rotphasen trafen uns, als wir die weichen Reifen montiert hatten, und ich meine, wir hätten sie nicht voll nutzen können. Aber bekanntlich kommt es ja erst morgen drauf an. Wir müssen uns darauf fokussieren, das Auto vor dem Qualifying zu verbessern und für den Rest des Wochenendes den bestmöglichen Job zu machen. Ich hoffe, erneut den Sprung in Q3 zu schaffen.“

“The car was a bit difficult today, so we want to find some improvements for tomorrow. We need to work well overnight to find some good steps for the car. We were trying a few different setup directions today with my engineers – some worked, and some didn’t, so we’ll try to implement everything we learned for tomorrow.”

“It’s been a tricky day overall. The car lacked pace and there’s a bit of a question mark as to why. While we’re slow on the timesheets, I didn’t feel totally comfortable at the wheel. We need to investigate what’s gone on as it seems a bit odd today. Conditions were tough, especially in the afternoon with high track temperatures and wind in places. A difficult day for us, but we’ll work hard tonight to find some solutions for tomorrow.”

“It was difficult for us out there today, especially with our pace where we struggled to match others around us. As the track improved, we couldn’t seem to improve with it. We have a bit of homework to do tonight. Both cars were off the pace, so we’ll try and figure it out and find a solution together. The wind did seem to affect a lot of people today. It certainly affected the car and it was tricky out there. We’ll look into everything and see what we can improve.”

“It’s not been the easiest of Fridays: track temperatures were incredibly high and it was quite windy out there, too. Unfortunately, the red flags came at just the wrong time for me, when I was doing my performance runs on the soft tyre – but at least those were simulations and not qualifying for real. I lost a bit of time going wide on the kerb in second practice, but the team did a great job and got me back out quickly. We have a lot of things to work on tonight to find some extra pace and we will come back fighting tomorrow.”

Friday was as expected, I had a good lap in FP1 and was surprisingly close to the rest of the field. I think we probably had a better time on track and the others didn’t optimise it as much as we did. It’s a short lap and we need to be ready to take advantage of anybody else’s mistakes. I’m feeling good, but the true pace is no different to the rest of the season.

Conditions were difficult. FP2 was much windier so this creates another challenge. We were a bit affected by yellow and red flags and it was definitely a difficult session.