Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

It was an unfortunate qualifying. I was held up by Leclerc and Ferrari. It was very clear to me that he was too slow on the inter on the outlap and I thought he was going to pit. I was expecting him to box and go onto the slicks. Instead, he stayed in front of me and I had to finish my lap just behind him, that meant I lost too much time. We will never know where I could have finished, top three should have been possible today but instead we finished P9 and I am super disappointed with the result. We will try hard tomorrow to try to recover and get into the points.

A disappointing outcome given that the pace was there. We still have a good car, so now we need to get on it and push to make up positions tomorrow in the Sprint.

We were working with pretty tricky conditions today and I locked up into turn 8 which cost me pole today. It’s just difficult out there and you have to see how far you can push, but you don’t want to make any big mistakes that can be costly. Tomorrow is looking good but in these conditions anything can happen. We are still up there at the front which is the most important thing. Let’s see how competitive we are going to be tomorrow in the race, we have no clue what will happen with the weather but that always makes Interlagos so special for everyone. Well done to Kevin and the Haas team today, I hope they enjoy every moment.

A tough day for the team in a tricky qualifying. We had one shot in Q3 with the Softs before the rain arrived and we will be starting from P5 tomorrow.
We will try to use the sprint race to gain some positions before serving the penalty on Sunday. Congratulations to Kevin and the entire Haas team for their first pole position.

Das war insgesamt ein schwieriges Qualifying. Es war nicht einfach, das Wetter vorherzusagen, und dann wurde es so dunkel, dass es schwer war, die Regentropfen zu sehen. Wir gehörten zu den letzten Autos auf der Strecke, so dass es auf meiner Runde im Vergleich zu den Autos vor uns immer nasser wurde. Ich glaube, wir haben in der Warteschlange in der Boxengasse etwas Reifentemperatur verloren, so dass es auf der einen gezeiteten Runde, die wir fahren konnten, einfach nicht zusammenpasste. Ich hatte einfach keinen Grip. Wir drehten am Ende eine Runde auf dem Intermediate, um den Reifen anzufahren, aber es war von Anfang an klar, dass die Strecke langsamer als im Trockenen sein würde. P8 ist also nicht ideal - aber George hat auf seiner Runde einen tollen Job gemacht, und herzlichen Glückwunsch an Kevin zur Pole.

Ich hatte in dieser Session gemischte Gefühle. Es war eine ziemlich einzigartige Erfahrung in Q3 - wir waren eines der letzten Autos auf der Strecke, und im Laufe der Runde fiel der Regen immer stärker - und in der letzten Kurve war es viel nasser als auf der Runde zuvor. Auf der nächsten Runde verlor ich das Auto in Kurve 4 und beschädigte mir dabei die Kopfstütze, weil mein Kopf so stark hin- und hergeschleudert wurde; dann versuchte ich eine 360°-Drehung und landete mit den Hinterreifen im Kiesbett, was nicht meine beste Entscheidung war. Es steckt jede Menge Kies drin und die Jungs werden das Auto auseinandernehmen müssen, um alles herauszuholen, aber hoffentlich wird alles gut. Trotzdem ist P3 eine gute Ausgangsposition für morgen, und ich muss Kevin und Haas ganz herzlich zur Pole gratulieren. Solche unerwarteten Ergebnisse sind es, die den Sport so besonders machen!

I always like these conditions. It was slippery out there, and very tricky to correctly judge the weather. We missed out on getting through to Q3 by a tenth – maybe even a bit less – which makes you think about where you could have made up that time. But, to be honest, I was pretty happy with the lap – then it started to drizzle, so maybe the timing was not ideal. It is a shame because I thought we could have got through today. There is lots to play for tomorrow and on Sunday.

Firstly, Congratulations to Kevin and the team – they really deserve this. On my side, it was a bit confusing but maybe I underestimated the grip. The track looked pretty damp, but it wasn’t as much as I thought. It’s very frustrating and tomorrow it means the job will be a bit harder but we’re up for it.

It’s a disappointing result, especially after we looked strong in FP1 earlier today. In the end, we made the call to go with intermediate tyres when pitting and that turned out to be the wrong choice: on my in-lap, I saw a Williams struggling and decided to stay on the inters. We realised softs were the best option and pitted again, but two laps were not enough to bring these tyres into temperature. Still, there’s everything to play for: we have two days to get into the points and, given our pace in the dry, we still have a chance to bring home a good result.

We took the risk in Q1, as the first to fit the Slicks, and it really paid off. We knew it would be really tight as the track dried in Q2, and we missed out on Q3 by just four tenths today but overall, I think it’s been a positive Quali and I have to be happy with the laps I have done. The pace was obviously there, so it’s a bit of a missed opportunity that we weren’t able to get through to Q3, especially when you see who’s on pole. I think we’re in a strong position to make up some places tomorrow in the Sprint and move forward for the race on Sunday.

I’m pleased with today’s Qualifying, which we had to execute in very tricky conditions. In the beginning, with the Intermediate tyres, we adapted quickly, and it was nice to be in first place! Once we switched to dry tyres, we were again in first place throughout, and we seemed to be fast in these challenging conditions. In Q3, when it started raining, it was always going to be a benefit to the ones at the front of the queue. We probably missed a chance to start higher up for the Sprint, but tomorrow the aim is to make up some places and I’m sure that is possible.

As a car, what makes our tyres work is different to most people, so we were really doing our own thing today. We did a really good job with P11 and at a track like this, it’s not easy and it was really close out there. We were only a couple tenths behind P5, so I’m really proud and think we did a great job.
This hopefully sets us up for the rest of the weekend, but we’ll see what we can do out there tomorrow.

I’d like to first congratulate Haas and Kevin [Magnussen] for their result today. They took a risk and it paid off, so I am happy for them. For us, it was of course a challenging Qualifying session but, in the end, it’s a good result for the team, finishing in sixth and seventh. It was very tricky today with the weather and we managed tyre choices well, which was important. Tomorrow is a great opportunity as the grid is quite mixed up compared to what we’re used to, so we’ll need to be at our best to take home the valuable points on offer for the Sprint.

It was a difficult session all around today. I do not think we had the pace in qualifying, so we need to look into why that was. We will see what we can do tomorrow in the Sprint and again in the Grand Prix on Sunday. The weather is expected to be a bit up and down all weekend, so there should be plenty of opportunities to make some overtakes and pick up some points.

I’m extremely happy with today. I think we did the best job we could have done throughout the whole of qualifying. I think the only thing we could have done a little bit better was going out first in Q3 – but there was also some risk to that. So, apart from that, we made perfect decisions, and the team did an excellent job. The car was feeling good, even in the tricky conditions. I was extremely happy to be P1, P5 and P4 through the qualifying runs. I feel like I did a good job all day, even with how I’ve been feeling – and maybe wasn’t driving as perfectly as I should have done, but P4 is still a great position for tomorrow, so hopefully we can stay in that position and score some good points tomorrow.

It’s incredible. I want to say thank you to Gene Haas, Guenther and the whole team for taking me back on and giving me the opportunity to have a day like this – I’m so chuffed. The team put me out in the pitlane as the first car and that was the gamechanger. It gave me the best piece of track as it started to rain and we got pole. It was the longest minute of my life trying to stay calm as it looked like it was going to be wet but you never know. I’m so happy.

So it was tricky to try to judge the conditions and we tried to build the rhythm and get the right lap in at the end and I think I was among one of the first few cars to switch to slicks, so it could have gone either way. It was frustrating as you hope to be able to make a bit of a difference in the session, but we had some issues during the session as well, and without that I think there was room for a bit more.

Everything was going really smoothly, especially considering the conditions were very slippery. Unfortunately, we probably pitted one or two laps too late, and I only had one push lap on the slicks, so it was nearly impossible to give everything on it. It’s obviously frustrating to be missing the cut-off by less than two tenths, especially because we could’ve likely improved had we gotten one more lap, so it’s a bit of a tough one. We felt we had the pace in the beginning, I did a really good lap on the softs, so it makes it more frustrating as I feel there was a lot more we could have given today. Nevertheless, we can hopefully gain some ground tomorrow and improve our starting positions ahead of Sunday’s race.

I’m obviously disappointed today, I’ve lacked grip in general straight from FP1 and we weren’t able to find a solution to this before heading into Quali. I was able to go out on the dry tyre for two laps in Q1 and try to get a good lap in, but unfortunately I just didn’t have the pace with this lack of grip.

It was a tricky session in tricky conditions. It was quite fun to be honest, but we didn’t have the pace. So yeah, that was a little tricky just to get it out of the first timed lap for the peak of the tyre. When I heard some lap-times of some of the others I was not really sure if that was possible. I simply didn’t have the pace once we put the slick tyres on. We’ll try to make up for it tomorrow though. The good thing is we’ve got the Sprint race as well, so you’ve got two chances and hopefully we can make up some ground.