Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

I think FP1 was quite tricky today, I wasn’t happy with the ride of the car but FP2 was much better, the car was a lot more competitive. Compared to Ferrari, I think the handling is still lacking on the curbs and the drops in camber. We need to work on that ahead of tomorrow because you can see that they are still very close, we’ll need more for qualifying tomorrow to stay ahead of them. I felt more confident in FP2 to push a bit more, we had a difficult start but a good end. I’m looking forward to qualifying tomorrow, let’s see what we can do.

It was a bit of a difficult day as the car is not doing exactly what it is supposed to do. So we need to take a good look at the set-up on my car and then work on it to ensure I have the right feeling with it tomorrow. Here it’s all about qualifying, so we didn’t do any race runs, just focusing on preparing for qualifying in the best way possible.

In general, I think the day was positive. We were fast in both sessions and the car feels okay on track. There are still a couple of things I want to try tomorrow on the set-up to try and improve, but overall we are quite competitive.
Obviously, it was not ideal to finish the session in that way, after a small miscalculation trying to find the limit. Sorry to the team and the mechanics for the extra work.

We completed enough laps today and we were able to get a good understanding of our car here around Monaco. It was important to find a rhythm early this weekend and avoid any issues. In both sessions the car felt good and it’s easy to drive which helps at this circuit. There are going to be lots of ups and downs for everybody this year, so we have to be ready to deliver every weekend. Some race weekends we will be quicker than our rivals and others it might be different, but I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s qualifying session.

A reasonable day – it’s just lovely to be back. Awesome to be back in the car here in Monaco. Feels insane, as always. Good fun out there and got comfortable very quickly, which is always important here. We made a few changes from FP1 to FP2, which were in the right direction, and we definitely got a bit more out of the car, so we’ll continue to try to explore that direction, see if we can improve a little bit more into tomorrow. A decent Friday, and I’m probably feeling a little bit more comfortable than I have been the last few weeks.

I’ve had an amazing day and I really enjoyed driving out there. I want to send a big thank you to everyone at the factories. To build, design and develop a car is not an easy thing. Everyone’s put in so many hours of hard work to get us here. We got a lot of data today; it’s not a place to ultimately test an upgrade but the car was generally feeling good.

It’s a shame we weren’t as close as I’d hoped at the end of the last session, but I felt some improvements. We’ve got to keep chipping away at it and see if we can squeeze some more juice out of the car.

It wasn’t a great day today in terms of pace in the car, I think FP1 went a little bit better than FP2. After the changes we made in the car we have plenty of things to review before tomorrow’s quail. I will sit down with my Team and go through everything because every millisecond here is going to make a difference. They are just little things, nothing huge is standing out at the moment, so I am not massively worried. It’s going to be a real challenge heading into qualifying, it’ll be an interesting session. We need to make sure we get on top of the tyres and put them in the window at the right time to get the perfect lap around here.

We felt more competitive than in Melbourne and Jeddah, which is a positive step in the right direction, even if it wasn’t enough to make it into Q3 yet. The setup felt good, and I was feeling comfortable with the car, so there is the potential to build on that in the remainder of the weekend. Today has been a pretty intense day, with just one practice session and then heading straight into qualifying, which has been quite interesting. I think there are still a lot of opportunities for us to take with a long weekend ahead, so let’s see what we can come up with tomorrow.

It’s always great to be here in Monaco and driving around this iconic Formula 1 circuit. It’s been a reasonably solid day for us with some upgrades on the car and it was good to build up an understanding on those and, in general, ease ourselves into the weekend. The car felt much improved between Free Practice 1 and Free Practice 2, so I’m happy with our work today and we’re in decent shape looking ahead to the rest of the weekend. Tomorrow is Qualifying day, an exciting experience at this place, and we’ll be giving it our best to be up there on the grid.

Driving here in Monaco is a very special experience; there’s really no place like it. On our side, I think it’s been a smooth day, where we’ve run through our programme, tried a few different things and, importantly, did not take any unnecessary risks. I think we have a few more things to go through and test to be really up to speed and ready for Qualifying tomorrow, so I’m sure Free Practice 3, for everybody, will be important. The car feels good, and we’re in a strong place looking ahead to the rest of the weekend.

Every lap mattered in practice today: it’s such a short lap around Monaco, it’s always tricky to pull everything together, but we got some good running in today and we learned a lot. The AMR23 is working well around here – it’s definitely behaving itself – so tonight we’ll focus on tweaking a few, final things. The pack has been tight all year – so getting everything right for qualifying will be essential. We’ll keep working on the car tonight and see what we can do tomorrow.

Monaco is such a unique track so it’s not an ideal place to be evaluating updates, but we knew that coming into the weekend. We’re just trying to focus on improving around this circuit and qualifying is obviously the most important part of the weekend. We generally do better on Sundays and struggle more on Saturday, so we need to try and flip that here.

There were positive signs to take from today’s sessions but it’s never easy around this place. We made a lot of changes throughout the day, and the car felt improved in FP2. We’ll work hard tonight to see what we can do tomorrow.

We were really close to Q2, which would have been a better result, and it’s a bit upsetting to miss out for just a couple of hundredths, but that’s how racing goes sometimes. The car felt pretty good this morning, during practice, but I couldn’t get the same feeling in qualifying. Overall, it’s been a tricky afternoon for me, as I struggled for grip throughout the session: still, I feel we can unlock more performance from our car ahead of tomorrow, and we will be working hard to put ourselves back in the game ahead of the Shootout and the Sprint.

It was a decent day and it looked good in FP1, we lost a little bit in FP2 I think with the changes we made to the car. It’s very bumpy out there for us in the low-speed, not like the typical high-speed porpoising stuff but just dealing with the bumps at the apex of the corners. It’s Monaco and everything is tight together and you only need to find a little bit then you move up a lot, so it’s still all to play for tomorrow.

It was good fun but challenging at the same time. It’s mega fast around here now and it’s the first time I drive this new generation of car around Monaco, and I have to say it’s probably the fastest thing I’ve driven around here and it’s only Friday, so there’s more to come. In terms of running, it wasn’t ideal in FP1 with the little kiss coming out of the tunnel. FP2 was okay, we collected a lot of data, and we have some new parts on the car that we need to analyze and see what else we can find.

I enjoyed driving around Monaco, but there is still some pace to be found for qualifying, and we have to focus on this as it's going to be really important. We have quite a few big upgrades on the car this weekend, but it’s hard to say how well they work because Monaco isn’t an aero-efficient track. As usual, we will put it together tonight so we can make it through to Q2 tomorrow, as Q3 seems a bit difficult, but let’s see.

I’m enjoying this track. I raced here in Formula 2 and Formula E, but coming here as the main series is definitely different. I think it was a solid Friday, in which we made progress throughout both of the sessions. We are slowly chipping away and getting more comfortable with the car on track, but there is still some work to do for the balance. The Monaco track isn’t an aerodynamic-sensitive track, so we will need to find more performance elsewhere from the new upgrades. We’ll do our homework tonight and we will need to keep it clean tomorrow when there will be a lot of cars on track during Q1, so getting a lap together will be challenging.

First day in Monaco in an F1 car. It was a bit of a tricky day, it’s such a challenging circuit and I’ve got a bit of work to do on my side, but that’s what happens when you’re getting up to speed. I think I’ve got the best out of each corner at least once, I’ve just got to put them all together on a lap now. We’ll keep working overnight and see what we can do. The car looks to be in a reasonable place, but the field is so tight again, so small improvements can have a big impact. We’ll keep pushing and look to unlock more pace tomorrow.

It was a great job from the team to get the car ready for FP2, despite being a bit compromised in that session. We need to take a look tonight to see if we can improve the car, however it is tricky out there, but I think it’s tricky for everyone. It feels like it always does around Monaco, like you’re on a knife edge but that’s because you’re always on the limit. Ultimately, I think we need to find a few more tenths to fight for Q2 but we’ll try do that.

The first day here in Monaco is done and it’s always a privilege to drive this track. We’re not exactly where we want to be and we’re missing some pace but, from a driving standpoint, I think I was driving well and that’s a positive to take. We’ll look to see how we can improve the car for tomorrow and we go again.