Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

It was quite a surprise to have the day end so well, after we had a difficult start this morning. It’s important to do as many laps as possible, especially here in Monaco, and with the issue we had in FP1 I only completed 4 laps.
In FP2, I felt at ease with the car and we may even have a bit of margin there to improve. But we shouldn’t get too carried away, because I am convinced that our competitors have more in hand. We have a day of work ahead of us tomorrow, and we will only know where we really stand on Saturday.

It has been a very positive first day for the team here in Monaco, but we know it is only practice. Things can change a lot from Thursday to Saturday at this track, so we will stay focused. Despite being quite happy with the car, we’ll keep working hard over the next two days to understand where we can improve. I really missed driving around these streets. I enjoyed myself in both sessions, pushing the car little by little to try to find the limit. Lets’ fine-tune everything to put together a strong Saturday!

Jeder Fahrer liebt es, hier in Monaco zu fahren. Das Wetter war großartig und die Strecke ist rasant, absolut faszinierend. Der Tag hat mir sehr viel Spaß gemacht. Ferrari sieht hier stark aus, was klasse ist, denn das bedeutet einen noch stärkeren Wettbewerb.

 

Auf dieser Strecke hatte ich schon immer das Gefühl, dass man nicht versuchen sollte, den zweiten Schritt vor dem ersten zu machen. Dies muss einem aber trotzdem rasch gelingen. Der Grip ist in diesem Jahr sehr hoch, sie haben die Oberfläche erneuert und dadurch ist die Haftung sehr gut.

Egal an welche Strecke du kommst, das Auto ist nie auf Anhieb bei 100 Prozent, du musst dich immer zuerst akklimatisieren. Aus Fahrersicht heißt das, dass du experimentieren musst. Du musst deinen Fahrstil feintunen, herausfinden, wo du pushen kannst und wo nicht, erkennen, wo du etwas Zeit hergeben kannst, um andernorts welche zu gewinnen. Du musst immer am Auto arbeiten.

Unser Auto ist gut. Uns sind bei der Balance einige ordentliche Schritte gelungen, so gesehen bin ich sehr happy. Ich habe einige Veränderungen, die ich heute Abend bei der Analyse vornehmen möchte, und dann wird es am Samstag ganz sicher eng zugehen. Das ist sehr aufregend.

It of course feels good to be back out on track in Monaco and although we did quite well in FP1, this afternoon’s session was tricky and I would have hoped that we could have been faster. We were too slow in FP2 and we really need to find some pace because everyone has traffic, you have to look to optimum lap times and optimum sectors and we were quite off. I usually feel quite comfortable in the car but that has not come yet this weekend. Luckily, we have a free day tomorrow to look at a few things to improve to make sure qualifying goes well on Saturday.

Es ist schön, nach zwei Jahren wieder auf dieser Strecke zu fahren. Sie ist immer noch eng und es gibt kaum Platz. Das ist sehr anspruchsvoll und ich glaube, dass wir noch am Auto arbeiten müssen. Aus meiner Sicht passt es auf dieser Strecke an der Vorderachse noch nicht ganz. Ähnliche Probleme hatten wir schon auf anderen Kursen, größtenteils mitten in der Kurve, aber hier gibt es nur langsame Kurven und wenn man dann kein gutes Gefühl für die Vorderachse hat, kann man leicht Zeit verlieren. Unser Auto fühlt sich auf den Bodenwellen und in den erhöhten Kurven recht steif an. Das müssen wir uns ansehen.

Es wird wichtig, die Reifen rasch ins Funktionsfenster zu bringen. Heute ist mir das auf der ersten Runde nicht sofort gelungen, entsprechend müssen wir morgen hart daran arbeiten. Ferrari sieht schnell aus, ebenso wie Red Bull. Es ist also nicht nur ein Zweikampf, was viel Spannung verspricht.

A decent day, I’m happy. I think we made some good progress between the sessions. It’s very tight, as expected, especially to the guys behind, but we also look not far off the guys ahead. We have a chance to capitalise on mistakes that they might make. I feel comfortable in the car but there’s definitely some more to unlock going into Saturday, and into qualifying. So, tomorrow we can spend the day looking over the data to see what improvements we can make for the rest of the weekend.

It’s been a very good day for us. In terms of pace it was great and this morning was a strong way to start here in Monaco – I felt confident in the car and could push hard. This afternoon we finished within the top ten, so we’re still pretty pleased with that, but it was a lot harder in the car. Hopefully I can work with the guys over the next day to improve in the areas where we are struggling but generally, we are quite happy with it. Monaco is so unique – in terms of grip and it’s also very bumpy – so we need to find out what works best with our package to make it work well around here. We have a good baseline but hopefully we can continue to improve ahead of Qualifying, as we know how crucial it is to Qualify well around these streets.

It’s great to drive in Monaco again after not racing here last year. I’m enjoying it a lot as it’s such a fantastic track. We had a very good FP1 and the car was feeling strong, we made a few changes between sessions and I think maybe we took a step backwards but it’s hard to really know as I had traffic on my soft tyre run. I think we probably have work to do on our short runs but we have lots of information to look at now ahead of qualifying on Saturday when hopefully we can be in the mix. Even though he missed most of FP1, Charles still managed to end the session fastest so the Ferraris are looking strong but let’s see who sits where on Saturday when it counts.

It has been a positive start to our weekend and I am very happy with the work we did today. FP1 was ok and already in FP2 I felt the balance of the car had improved. I am happy with P9 at the end of the day, but it’s qualifying when it really matters: we have to keep being on the pace. I think Monaco is such a unique track, hard to compare with anything else, and I think it really suits us: if we can improve a little more ahead of Saturday, we can be confident.

I think everybody is happy to be back here at this special track and it is great to see fans in the grandstands, even though the numbers are still limited. The morning session went well, and I got into a rhythm quickly, but the afternoon was more complicated because I got something in my eye, which was quite uncomfortable and caused my eye to tear up. As usual, it is very close in the midfield, which means getting everything perfect on Saturday afternoon, and being lucky with the traffic, is what matters. I feel happy with the work we did today and if we can get everything together over the weekend, we can hopefully be near the front of the midfield group.

Today was ok, a straightforward day without big issues. So far, so good, but Saturday is where it matters. We can definitely still improve but so can the others, so we will need to extract all we can for the car and see where that puts us on Saturday. Conditions today were good, but we can’t be drawn into making comparisons with other weekends: this track is so unique. It doesn’t matter anyways, so long as we’re competitive!

It was an intense day as it always is on Thursday in Monaco. I think we did a good job with 64 laps in total, building some confidence in the car, which is very useful, so I’m happy with that. There are a lot of things to analyse as we tried some new updates, but we’ll look over it tonight and tomorrow and aim to be strong for qualifying. Traffic management will be difficult, and we saw a snapshot of how tough it is to have a clean lap here in both the morning and afternoon sessions. Managing this well could be key to a good qualifying position on Saturday.

It is great to be back here in Monaco, especially after the race did not take place last year. I had a lot of fun out there today – building up speed and getting close to the walls. It was very busy on track, with a lot of traffic, and not easy to find free air, which is always a major factor on Saturday and Sunday, too. The sessions went smoothly, giving us lots of information and things to improve before final practice. There is a chance to catch our breath tomorrow with a quiet day, but we still have some engineering meetings to see what ideas we can come up with ahead of qualifying.

Practice day went quite smoothly in terms of doing what we needed to do, which was understanding the car, finding a rhythm and identifying any issues. We didn’t figure out everything, but we’ll go through and analyse that tonight and also tomorrow on the free day. We’ll be working hard to find those tenths we’re missing at the moment. There’s also a little bit more to come from me in terms of pushing the car to the limit. It was nice to see fans around the circuit today and having their support again. It’s definitely feeling like the normality of before, which is good and motivating when we’re in the car.

Back on the streets! It’s nice to be back here for sure, it’s a good track and I love it. Despite that, today wasn’t a great day, we’ve got some work to do. We’ve got the evening and all day tomorrow to work it out, but this is why I love Monaco, you get a day off to really get into it, reset, and have a look at where we’re missing out.
I think by Saturday I’ll be all good and we’ll figure it out, but today it just felt like a little bit of a stalemate at times. We’ve got some work to do, but the sun is shining, and we’ll get back out there on Saturday and have some fun.

Firstly, it is amazing to be back on the track in Monaco. It is so thrilling pushing the car to the limit. It is obviously really difficult having 20 cars on the track in the space of an hour for everybody to get clear laps. I think we had a productive day; the car is roughly where we expected it to be. The Alfa Romeo’s look really fast, which is something that we did expect on this kind of circuit. We have a long day tomorrow to analyse everything and I am confident we can make some gains for Saturday.

Above all else I really enjoyed today. It is my first time here in a Formula One car as well as my first time driving a street track in these cars. It is a lot faster than I remembered in Formula 2 and you really notice the extra width these cars have. It was a lot of fun; we have some things to work on tonight to improve the balance ahead of Saturday. We had a pretty clean day and got confidence lap by lap, so I am happy with where we are.

Monaco is just unbelievable to be at, regardless if you’re driving or not – it’s just something else. It was a very good day today for us. The team has done a fantastic job to come away from a difficult weekend in Barcelona. I had the necessary confidence in the car today that I needed. Surprising to say given the season so-far, but I had so much fun in the car, it actually felt like it was a day off – it was just cool to drive. Looking ahead, there’s much less room to let cars by here, and we’re under no illusion about being lapped at this race with our current pace. But for today, all was good.

I think in general the day went very well – I felt I got comfortable in the car. Obviously, we know what we have to improve, those areas where we know we lost a bit of time. One of the big things here in Monaco is how much traffic you’ll encounter on a lap. Unfortunately, we got some on our laps today, but I think in general it’s the same for everyone else. On our last run in FP2 we had a small issue but even that I think is just part of the deal in Monaco. There’s no room for mistakes, I made a small mistake, and that’s what happened. Now I know the limit and how far I can go. I do feel we’re making progress as a team. Here in Monaco we’ll just keep doing our jobs, go through our routines, and keep on working to be as prepared as we can for qualifying.

Sadly, my second session ended early today – I wasn’t pushing too hard into the corner, but I lost grip at the end of the turn and unfortunately tapped the wall. I’m not sure how much this will affect my preparation for the race, obviously a loss of running isn’t ideal, but I’ve got two sets of Softs for Saturday now so it’s not the worst case. I just need to prepare more for Saturday and put it altogether when it counts.