Fahrerstimmen – Tag 1

I’m very happy to be on pole. The tarmac was quite slippery so I was really having to build up lap after lap, but I think we were in a good window and we were improving quite nicely through each run. I think we also made the right calls after FP1 heading into qualifying. Tomorrow will be interesting, with the different session times and temperatures, but let’s see what we can do. Overall though, I think we can all be happy with the performance of the car today.

I am very happy with P2 today. FP1 was really challenging. The grip was low, and it was really windy. It was very dusty and sandy on the track. When we went out in qualifying, the track temperature had dropped, and the wind had calmed. The lap times had improved massively. The car felt good throughout the session, and I’m pleased with where we finished. It’s great to have Lewis behind me in P3 now. We can be strategic and work together. We’ve got our sights set on a strong result on Sunday, especially with both the McLarens and the Ferraris behind us. We know we’re going to have a fight on our hands as they will be quick.

It’s fair to say that the Grand Prix will be a completely different story if this track evolution continues. We’re going to have to learn on the job, but the F1 Sprint will give us a good indication of tyre wear and what the likely best strategy will be. We’re looking forward to tomorrow.

Qualifying is always difficult and today was a pretty average session for me. It was quite windy out there and difficult at the beginning. We nearly didn’t get out of Q1 but fortunately we managed it. We were then right up there in Q2 which was encouraging. We’ve been a little bit surprised by our pace here today. It’s a good surprise and positive for the team. Being on the front two rows of the grid is clearly a good result. It’s important that we are ahead of both Ferraris and that is really key. George also did a great job today. I’m going to be giving it everything to try and bag the most points we can on Sunday.

I am very happy with qualifying in fourth position for Sunday’s race, after a few weekends where we weren’t as competitive. It was very tricky to manage with the slippery track and windy conditions. The car felt fast in FP1 and it felt good again later in Qualifying. It’s only the first step and we have the Sprint tomorrow, so let’s see what we can do as there are points available on both days.

I had to abort my first run in Q3, after running wide in a corner in the first sector and so I only had one lap left to set a competitive time. It was quite tough to get the tyres to work today: on the first flying lap the rears were not working as expected and the situation only improved when you continued to push, which is not ideal in qualifying.  Now, we’ll give it our all for tomorrow to get on the pace that we lacked today.

P6. It’s a bit of a shame to get my lap deleted at the end. It makes life slightly trickier for Sunday, but the pace in the car was decent. It’s a shame we both overstepped the mark a little bit on our laps. We’ll try again tomorrow and hopefully we can do a bit better.

I am very happy to be back in Q3. Right from the start of the day, I have had a good feeling with the car and felt in a good place where I feel I could push the car to the limit straight away. I put in a strong lap in Q2, same in Q3 and in the end it’s put us in a solid spot on the grid for Sunday. It’s been a strong Friday for the team overall and hopefully we can convert it into points over the next two days. The field is tight, much tighter than I thought it would be, so we will see what we can do to close down some of the cars ahead. It’s the Sprint tomorrow and the aim is to have another solid day right from the get-go here in Qatar.

It’s great to be back driving in Qatar and it’s been a good day for the team with both cars in Q3 in Qualifying. Our day started with a busy Free Practice session and I think we optimised the changes well to head into Qualifying in a good place on car balance. The team did a very good job in turning things around quickly in such tough conditions and everyone has managed the sessions well today. We are in a good starting position for Sunday’s race but now our focus turns to the Sprint Shootout and Sprint Race where there is a chance to grab valuable points.

I am happy to have made it back into Q3 after a while, and I felt really confident in the car today. This result is a good reward for the whole team, for the job done over the past few weeks. It has been a positive surprise to be in the top ten but it shows how we hit the ground running, right from the only practice session – as we intended to – and made all the right calls. Of course, tomorrow will be a new, standalone day, with the Shootout and the Sprint, but we have definitely kicked things off the right way and, most importantly, we’ll be lining up on the grid in the top ten on Sunday, right in the fight for points.

A disappointing day, I had a correction and oversteer, went off and the lap time was deleted. I should have been much higher up today. The pace of the car has been amazing, the team have done a great job. I made too many mistakes and paid the price.
There are definitely opportunities to recover across the weekend, but right now I'm frustrated that I didn’t get the job done in quali, which is to put in good laps. We’ll work hard to prepare for the Sprint tomorrow and try and make up for it on Sunday.

It would’ve been good to be in Q3, so it’s not exactly the qualifying we wanted, but it’s still close to the points, so it’s okay. There are places I can improve on, but the car’s upgrades are working, so we’re feeling optimistic. There’s margin for improvement, and tomorrow is another day for qualifying, so I’m looking forward to it because it’s another chance to do better than today. The conditions were tricky today because the wind in FP1 was extreme but calmed down for qualifying, and the temperature dropped, so it was slightly easier to drive. The car turns differently in some corners from one lap to the next because of the wind, but it’s one of the track’s characteristics that makes it interesting and fun to drive.

Overall, it’s been a difficult Friday. I struggled with the car balance and couldn’t find decent grip out there in qualifying. I’m obviously not happy but we’ll see what we can do for tomorrow. Hopefully we can turn it around for the Sprint and we’ll fight hard to recover on Sunday.

Retracing it, we only did one practice session in which we really struggled with the wind and balance, just finding it difficult to find that sweet spot. It happens with these short weekends; you’ve got to be prepared early and we just struggled, so it’s a bit frustrating. There might be some small changes we can make overnight but nothing that’s going to help us with the wind, which is obviously bad for everyone, but it impacts some cars more than others and we’re one of them unfortunately. Every corner feels different with no rhyme or rhythm, so it’s instinctive driving which is fun but difficult.

It was hectic in a way, but ultimately not good enough or fast enough, we lacked a bit of pace and balance. Obviously, during a Sprint there isn’t a lot of practice so we couldn’t play with the car or the set-up as much as I or the team would’ve liked. Tomorrow, we have qualifying straight away in different conditions, when it’s much hotter. It will be a bit of a surprise, a mixed bag of what we’re going to get, so we just need to be on our toes and react quickly.

It’s been a good day. It’s a step in the right direction and what I needed to do coming into this weekend. The best part about it is we have another chance to do it tomorrow. The disappointment is that I know I had some margin in the high-speed that I found on that second push but unfortunately couldn’t improve but it’s right there. Coming into the weekend not knowing the circuit, I found my feet really quickly which is important. As a team, I’m proud of the way that we’ve progressed through Free Practice, the changes we made for Quali and we had the car in a good window. I got almost everything out of it. There was a little bit more on the table but I’m sure everyone can say the same.

It was a disappointing Qualifying session today. My first lap was deleted due to track limits and I had to abort my second due to traffic, so I had a big job to do for my final run. The car felt okay, but we just didn’t have the pace. We’ve got another opportunity to go again tomorrow, and learn what we can ahead of the Sprint events.

Today was tricky. Since we hit the track in FP1, I’ve been struggling with the car, and I know everybody was with the way the track was. I think we narrowed down the issues we experienced in practice, but not enough, and we still have things to look into. The track was quite dusty in FP1, but it cleaned up a lot for qualifying and was a lot better. The final laps felt good, but I was struggling with the handling of the car. There are some corners we need to look into to find more time because I didn’t have the confidence to really push and put it on the limit, but with the different format this weekend, there are definitely opportunities.

On my side, it’s a new track and I found it a little more difficult to learn than I had hoped. It’s actually a pretty tricky circuit to drive and not having been to it before, it’s taken me a while to get on top of it. So, there’s a lot more lap time to find from me. It’s a long weekend ahead still, but of course disappointed with P19, but we’ll try and do better in the next session.

We should have qualified much higher up, as we saw with Valtteri, but we never got a chance to even set our final lap in Q1. It’s frustrating, Logan [Sargeant] decided to overtake me on the start/finish straight and that destroyed both our laps. The track was improving with every lap, and we could not set a lap when it really mattered, It was a completely unnecessary move, but it doesn’t matter now – the damage is done and we need to move on and think about the rest of the weekend. Tomorrow we get a chance to exploit our pace in the Shootout and the Sprint: we will need to have a clean first session and maximise what we can achieve in the evening.

It was quite difficult out there today, we struggled for balance a lot and we had so many issues that I couldn’t really fix any of them. Every corner was different and the conditions here made it tricky. It is not over, it is obviously going to be very difficult to pass in the race here, especially with the track conditions we currently have but we will see what we are able to do and recover from there on Sunday. Tomorrow is a new day and we have the chance to put in a better performance across the Sprint format.