Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

“We can’t speak of disappointment, at the end of the day we made a good step forward. Barcelona is the place where everyone brings a lot of new parts and you’re here to find out if they all work. I think we made a step, so did the others, but it looks as though we like this track and our cars feel comfortable here. Looking to qualifying, I didn’t get into the rhythm immediately, so it was not the smoothest run, but I made it on the primes. In Q2 I felt much happier on the soft compound tyres, but unfortunately in the last qualifying I lost a little bit too much and I wasn’t entirely happy with my lap. Mark did a good lap and a better job today. Let’s see tomorrow, it’s a long race and we saved a set of tyres. I think we will be on top of KERS for the race, the guys are pushing hard and we have proved our car has become quicker, so big compliments to the aero guys in the factory and everyone here. We are working hard on KERS. I didn’t have it in Q2 or Q3 today, but I‘m sure we will have it tomorrow for the race.”

“It was a good session. It was clear going into qualifying that we might have had a bit of a margin and would be battling for pole between ourselves today. You can never underestimate these guys though. We got through Q1 on the first set of hard tyres, which was good, and then in the crucial part of qualifying – in Q3 – it was just about getting the lap right. The lap was pretty good and I was just praying that my number went to the top when I crossed the line. It was a nice lap, a good battle with Seb and today was my day.”

"Leider funktionierte mein KERS im Q3 nicht, aber wir haben das Beste daraus gemacht", erklärte Michael. "Wir haben uns entschieden, auf den harten Reifen rauszufahren, um so darauf zu reagieren, wenn ein anderes Auto das ebenfalls gemacht hätte. Als es niemand tat, sind wir ohne eine Rundenzeit zu setzen reingefahren, um jetzt unsere Strategie für morgen zu überlegen."

“The Red Bulls look very strong, but I’m going to do everything I can to jump at least one – if not both – of them at the start. I hope I can attack tomorrow. “When you start from the clean side of the grid, you automatically have a much better opportunity of getting a good start – and, this year, I’ve usually been on the dirty side, so tomorrow will be a bit of a bonus for me. “Third on the grid is actually a perfect position – because, if you get a good start, you can slipstream the guys in front. My aim is to be P1 by Turn One! It doesn’t normally go that way, but as long as I don’t go backwards I’ll be happy. “When you’re trying to eke every last drop out of the car, you sometimes lock the front wheels – and that’s just what happened on my final lap. While the flat-spot to the front-left doesn’t look perfect, we’ll manage it by re-balancing the wheels, so it’ll be fine. “We’ve definitely made an improvement this weekend. We’ll keep pushing: we don’t give up, and with the DRS we should see some good racing tomorrow.”

“I feel that I did a good lap, so I’m happy with that; my car got better and better throughout the session – I was only three-hundredths slower than Lewis. I was a bit unlucky not to be third, then Fernando got between us as well, so you can see how close it is out there. “One major positive is that, like Lewis, I’ll be starting on the clean side of the grid. Another is that, also like Lewis, I’ve got two sets of [Option] tyres that have only done one lap and another set that’s brand new – that’s going to be key tomorrow. “Having your tyres in good condition makes such a difference – so I think we’re looking in very good shape. “There’s a big difference between the Option and the Prime here, so there’ll be some different strategies tomorrow. We’ll be looking at the strategy tonight and I’m sure we can make the harder tyre work for us too.”

"Da unsere Konzentration an diesem Wochenende auf der Rennpace lag, war es zu erwarten, dass wir im Qualifying etwas zurückliegen würden", sagte Nico. "Allerdings bin ich nicht allzu enttäuscht mit dem siebten Platz, denn wir sollten im Rennen morgen stärker sein. Ich glaube, dass wir dann besser als in Istanbul sein können. Ich habe noch einen frischen Reifensatz übrig, den ich gut gebrauchen kann und ich hoffe, dass wir mit der richtigen Strategie weiter nach vorne gelangen können."

„Auf meiner letzten Runde, als ich mit frischen weichen Reifen unterwegs war, hatte vor mir ein Force India Probleme. Er hat einen Fehler in Kurve zehn gemacht, und damit war es für mich gelaufen. Das ist ein Jammer, denn unser neues Aero-Paket funktioniert gut, das ist ganz klar eine Verbesserung, und das Auto war definitiv schnell genug für einen Platz unter den ersten Zehn. Im Rennen sollten wir gut sein. Mit den harten Reifen klarzukommen, wird allerdings für alle tückisch.“

“We have got to be happy with the result. The team made a big improvement today, and the result of my car reflects that. Things felt good, the balance of the car was fine and I was able to put in a fast time in Q3 to ensure that we got the car in a good position on the grid. I knew what we had to do today, and did it so I am pleased and looking forward to tomorrow. It should be another action packed race and strategy will be very important.”

“I did a perfect lap: I reckon that if I tried to repeat it twenty times, I could not do better! When you do a lap like that it’s hard to put into words what one feels: always being on the limit, in every corner is a really special feeling for a driver. I am very happy with this result, because we have never made it to the second row this year. Sure, pole position is still a long way off: today, Red Bull was once again out of reach and we must work hard to try and get closer. This morning we ran some set-up changes on the car that did not produce the results we were expecting, also partly down to the conditions changing in terms of wind direction. We went back to what we had before for qualifying and instantly it was better. In general, we have made a step forward in performance terms, thanks to the updates we have brought here. So far, in the races we have gone better than in qualifying and so I think we can be in the fight for the podium. It will be tough at the start because the McLarens always get off the line well and then they have one more new set of soft tyres than we do.”

I knew we had a gearbox problem as soon as I went out in Q1 as it felt strange. I think there is a big positive in saving a set of tyres, which is one way of looking at it, but having seen where Pastor finished, we could also have had a good shot inside the top ten. I will be pushing to be there tomorrow.

“This was definitely not the qualifying performance we were expecting, but all weekend long we have struggled with the balance of the car: we would have needed to be perfect to start a bit further up the order and that was not the case. Let’s hope that, on full tanks, the car works better and then we can see if we can get a good result. On a track like this it will not be easy to manage the tyres in the best way nor to find the best possible strategy. In Q2 we decided to stay in the garage, running the risk of not getting any further, because it would not have made much sense making the cut and then finding ourselves in Q3 without any new tyres: the outcome proved us right, even if we had hoped to make a better job of that opportunity. It is clear we suffer more than the others on the hard tyres. Overtaking? We will definitely see more than in the past at a circuit like this and that will mainly be down to tyre degradation.”

„Ich hatte keine speziellen Probleme auf meiner letzten Runde, sie war einfach nicht gut. Platz zwölf ist nicht aussichtslos, und ich bin sehr zuversichtlich für das Rennen, aber ich konnte das Potenzial der weichen Reifen heute am Ende nicht umsetzen. Das ist schade, zumal ich mit dem Auto sehr zufrieden bin, und das ist für das Rennen morgen entscheidend. Nach dem dritten freien Training heute Vormittag hattn wir einige Abstimmungsänderungen vorgenommen, die alle funktionieren.“

I am really happy for the team and all the guys. We’ve tried really hard to find a good balance all weekend. Yesterday’s practice, particularly the first session, was really difficult for me. The car wasn’t great so we took a bit of a risk and decided to run the new rear wing in qualifying. The car seems more competitive, but we still need to keep pushing and improve. I am happy today.

“I am very happy with this eleventh place. We finished ahead of the Saubers and Force India and when you consider that as planned I will have some new parts for the next race, it is also a very good sign for Monaco. On top of that we have saved an extra set of new soft tyres for the race, because we opted not to try a second run in Q2, so at the moment everything is looking good. In some ways, it is better to be eleventh than tenth, because if I had made it to Q3, we would probably have gone out and used another set of tyres, but this way, I am on the clean side of the track with one set extra.”

“We switched back to our traditional aero package this morning because we didn’t really have enough time to understand all the new parts that we brought here. So we went back to a package and balance that we were already happy with. We also know that qualifying is not as important as it used to be and that race strategy now plays a bigger factor in your race result. That’s why we only ran the prime tyres during Q2 so that we could keep some new option tyres for the race. We feel this is the best approach for tomorrow and hopefully it will pay us back.”

“The car worked well in the high speed section of the circuit, but in the slow ones, I did not have a good feel for the car, so we need to look at the data to see how to improve the car in Sector 3 before tomorrow’s race. Overall, I am pleased for the team because the result for both of us is good and I think we can run a competitive race. We can expect a three pit stop strategy, because Pirelli’s new Prime is harder than it was before. I am looking forward to having a good race at my home circuit.”

“I don’t think our position on the grid is that representative of our true pace this weekend. We took the decision very early on that saving tyres for the race would free up our strategy a bit. That means I’ve got two sets of new options and a set of new primes to use tomorrow. On paper that looks like the sensible approach so hopefully things will work out. How we use the tyres is also important because there’s a big difference between the two compounds in terms of pace. Also, the prime being used here is much harder than usual and so it lasts a bit longer. I’m looking forward to the race and I’m sure we can come away with a better result than our qualifying performance.”

"This is obviously a great day for Team Lotus and I want to thank everyone here and back at the factory for working so hard to get us to this next step in our story. There is a lot more to come from this car and while we have performed really well today we can see that we can keep progressing and taking the fight to the cars around us on merit. With the work we did overnight and in FP3 I can feel that we have found a much better balance in the high-speed corners, and we can work more on how it feels in the low speed corners which is where I think we will find even more time, but for now this is a good feeling and puts us into a good position for the race tomorrow."

"First I want to congratulate to the whole team for getting Heikki into Q2. That's a great achievement for us and a sign of what's to come. For me the session was interrupted by what looks like an electrical issue that meant I was stuck in second gear when I went out for my first run, but we changed the steering wheel and I managed to get a lap in right in the last few seconds that still put me ahead of Rubens, so we'll start tomorrow from 18th and with the pace we have in the car in race conditions I think we'll have a good afternoon."

“I think we had a good qualifying today. We had a bit of trouble with the first set of tyres as they didn’t work as they should and I was a little worried. The second lap was pretty spot on I have to say, although I made a small mistake in turn 7 as I was pushing so hard. We spent pretty much the whole of Friday not being able to concentrate on set-up and it’s been quite hard to get the old package working well again. We tried our best this morning and in the end it wasn’t too bad in qualifying. Now we have to focus on the race and just stay positive as we chip away at improving the car step by step.”

“We can be happy about today’s qualifying, there was some improvement with the upgrades, now we need to keep pushing for new updates in the next race. We are in the right direction to improve the car and the team as a whole. So we’re doing well and need to work hard to make the next step. It’s very positive to be in and amongst the Virgins, it’s important for us to do a good race tomorrow for the home crowd. There’s always a great atmosphere in Spain but it’s even more motivating when you’re driving for a Spanish team, you can feel the support and want to give something back to the fans by doing well. Hopefully we can get a good start tomorrow and have no issues with pit stops. It will be a difficult race as we’ve suffered a bit with the new Pirelli compounds”.

“It wasn't such a smooth day for me today. For some reason in the morning session we couldn't find the same speed that we had yesterday and then in qualifying I only really had one lap because I had a hydraulic failure during my first run. But even though it wasn't the most straightforward session, the team did a great job to fix the car and we are in the race, so let's see tomorrow.”

“It was a challenging day, and there was not much more we could have done after the exhaust problem this morning. The was a small hole in the right exhaust and then it overheated. Then, when I heard a strange noise, the power cut out and there were flames so I had to stop. Since then, the team worked flat out to try and get me out for the qualifying session, but it was not to be. At least I managed to get a couple of laps on the hard tyres today, and during the race tomorrow I will need to push hard to make up some ground and get up the order.”

“Yesterday and today have been very difficult, especially P2 and P3 where we drove with new parts and didn’t have the right balance. After that I was a little bit worried about qualifying but we pulled everything together. We sat down and analysed the situation. I’m happy to be in front of our nearest competitors for the first time and also close to Tonio. I’m pleased to be in this position, especially since it’s the team’s home grand prix, now let’s see how the race goes tomorrow”.