Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

It´s fantastic to be on pole again here in Bahrain. I really enjoy the track and I won my GP2 Series title here so it has some pretty special memories for me. We’ve had a good weekend so far and I’ve been able improve my pace throughout the practice sessions so I was hoping for a strong qualifying. It´s so difficult to get everything completely right with all the new technology and set-up requirements on the car but I felt really comfortable this evening and was able to put some great laps together. I’m looking forward to the race as I had a good run on high fuel but we’re going to need to be careful with tyre degradation.

Second place is pretty good for us today. I made a mistake on my last lap which was a shame but it’s great for the team to have both cars on the front row. They’ve done a fantastic job this weekend with the set-up simulations and we did a lot of testing here before the season started which has helped. The car has felt good so far but I definitely felt more comfortable in practice than I did this evening in qualifying. I’m not really sure why but we’ll have a good look at the data tonight and see if there is anything we can identify before the race tomorrow. Congratulations to Nico today, he’s done a great job so far this weekend and nailed a really quick lap in qualifying. I’m happy that it’s my team-mate there on pole and not someone else!

It was a good qualifying session; I think we got the maximum potential out of the car today. After the Red Bull penalty we are third and after the last two races it’s good to see the full potential of the car on a Saturday. We haven’t done too many laps this weekend so there are things we can still improve for the race, but if we get the strategy right and take the opportunities that come our way we should be in for a good result.

"It was definitely a great qualifying session and the team did a fantastic job to give me such a competitive car. After the problems we had in the first two races I feel this has been the first real opportunity to show the potential of the car. I believe we could have been even closer to the front, but I couldn't warm up my brakes enough on the out lap of my final run in Q3 and so I didn’t improve. We're already thinking about tomorrow and I think the clear target must be to aim for the podium. We're in the best possible position to fight at the front and I’m going to make the most of it. I've got some very good memories of this track but tomorrow I want to create even better ones."

“I am reasonably pleased with my qualifying, because up until this morning, I did not feel completely comfortable in the car, but the faith I put in what we had at our disposal was paid back with this result. We are improving in all areas, on the engine, data acquisition, electronics and the new parts fitted to the car have given me a better feeling from the front end. Sure, we are not yet where we want to be, but I think we are on the right path and we have the right people to give us every possibility to continue to move forward. It’s hard to say how tomorrow’s race will go, because in the simulation done yesterday, I was struggling on the Medium tyre, while the balance was better on the Soft. We know we can’t fight with Mercedes, but today’s result gives me more confidence than at the previous races and I will do my best to bring home a good result.”

"Although we haven’t qualified where we’d ideally like to have done, as a team I reckon we’ve done a more or less perfect job so far this weekend. "It was very tight out there, we did all we could, and we ended up very close to P4; all you can do is get the best out of the car, and that’s what we did here today. "The four fly-away races are all about picking up points as and when you can. We’ve done that pretty well the first two races, and we’ve got to continue doing that. We’re not the quickest, so we’ve got to make the best of what we have and what we are. "A podium finish tomorrow would be great, but it’ll be very difficult because the first two places are already fully booked as long as the two Mercedes cars are reliable. But let’s be positive: we’ve got a fighting chance of making up places tomorrow, and third place is only three spots better than where we’ll be starting from [sixth]."

That was not a very easy qualifying. I made a few mistakes on my lap in Q3 as I had a bit of oversteer, so lost some time and I really should have been quicker. We will start P7 tomorrow after Ricciardo’s penalty and it’s a long race so a lot could happen. We look competitive which is good to see, and we are in the fight for tomorrow.

"I’m not entirely happy with my qualifying position today, to be honest. "We’d hoped that the cool temperatures would confer more of an advantage to us, and help us a little bit more, but it didn’t work out that way. Having said that, Jenson did a very good job, and got a bit more out of the car than I did, and I think that’s probably the most anyone could have got out of it today. "Our race pace might be better than our qualifying pace was, and we should hopefully be a bit more competitive tomorrow as a result of that. We should be in the thick of the fight for points. "But, first of all, I need to make a clean start tomorrow. I don’t want any damage to the front wing at the first corner!"

“We tried our best as usual today and now we need to wait for the car to come back from parc ferme to work out why there was a drop in power in Q3. In winter testing here we had already seen that this circuit is particularly suited to the Mercedes powered cars, because the long straights allow them to use their top end performance. But given how free practice and the first two parts of qualifying had gone, maybe we could have hoped to be a bit higher up the order. Now, we must think only of doing well tomorrow, especially at the start, given we are on the clean side because of Ricciardo’s penalty. Then we must work out the best strategy, choosing between two or three stops. A lot will depend on how the tyres perform: I think that, in lower temperatures than we have seen so far, the Medium could throw up some surprises.”

"We weren't quick enough today. I was pretty happy yesterday, but I think this afternoon didn't help us when I spun off and did some damage to the car. It's hard to say how big the impact of that was, as once you start qualifying you just get your head down and try to do the best you can. It was quite tight with Kimi and there wasn't a lot missing to get to Q3, but that's how it goes. We get an extra set of tyres tomorrow and I think in the race things will calm down and we'll be able to be a bit more consistent and attack for some good points," he said. "I think our speed is okay on a longer run – and actually on a shorter run too, as Dan has shown today. It will be hard to overtake some cars tomorrow, but we will try our best."

“My lap in Q2 was not the best one. I made a mistake in turn 11 and ran wide on the exit kerb, which completely ruined my lap. I lost a couple of tenths and that made the difference between making it into Q3 and missing out. I do believe the chance for a good result tomorrow is still there and I feel optimistic. We showed on Friday that we have good long run pace and I have two new sets of soft tyes for the race. The strategy decisions for tomorrow will be important to help me move forward and with the cooler conditions it should be easier on the tyres compared to Malaysia.”

“I am a little bit disappointed and also surprised with only making it to Q2, because we were fast enough to get into Q3 looking at how the rest of the weekend went so far. But unfortunately the others were faster and we didn’t manage to improve enough so it wasn’t a very satisfying Qualifying session. We will have a look at this tonight and hopefully we can have another strong race tomorrow.”

"Today was nice, tomorrow will be less nice with the 10-place penalty, but I was really happy with qualifying," Daniel said afterwards. "I think through all the runs and on both tyres I was happy with my performance. We may have saved one set of tyres compared to the others, so that's good, hopefully I'm going to need it tomorrow for coming through the pack; hopefully it will help us. "I did the best I could today, so for that I'm pleased. I think Seb and I will both be charging hard tomorrow and will aim to put on a good race."

“Today the team did again a very good job to give me a car that was more suitable for me and I had a good feeling in Q2. We made a good step forward compared to yesterday, even though I felt down in power and we will have to investigate the reasons for this. Anyway, we have to stay positive, also because starting 14th on the grid is not too bad and everything is possible. We just have to keep our head down and stay focussed.”

„Ich bin mit dem Ergebnis des Qualifyings durchaus zufrieden. Wir haben es geschafft, ein paar schnelle Runden hinzubekommen. Ich möchte mich bei meinem Team bedanken, das aufgrund meiner Rückmeldungen die richtige Balance des Autos gefunden hat. Wir müssen nun nach vorne schauen und weiterhin hart arbeiten, da wir mit unserer Performance noch nicht da sind, wo wir sein wollen. Ich habe ein grossartiges Team, und wir alle arbeiten sehr hart. Heute habe ich das Maximum aus dem Auto herausgeholt und hatte eine gute letzte Runde. Mit den niedrigeren Temperaturen wird das Verhalten der Reifen anders sein als im vergangenen. Ich bin positiv gestimmt, aber mit unseren momentanen Rundenzeiten können wir noch nicht in die Top 10 fahren. Wenn wir jedoch konstant weiterarbeiten, bin ich davon überzeugt, dass wir in naher Zukunft Punkte holen können.“

“It was tight to get to Q2. We knew beforehand that we were around the cut off, so it was great to get through. If we look at the whole weekend we've been struggling on the track. This evening the car felt more together and more driveable - of course sixteenth is not great and we're never going to be satisfied with that, but I'm happy with the way the team has been working and pushing in the right direction. We have to try things and try to understand why we are where we are and why we are not unlocking our potential. I hope the race pace will be a little bit better than the qualifying pace and then we can put up a good fight in the race.”

“We're not here to fight for P16 and P17 so it's a bit disappointing to see ourselves where we are in qualifying at the moment. We just need to be focused and try to push even more on the development of the car to catch the people around us. At the moment it’s fair to say our car is a bit on the slow side and quite difficult to drive. However we've made an important step forwards in terms of reliability. There have been no problems this weekend which is quite positive so fingers crossed for tomorrow. For the race pace we look much more competitive than in qualifying. I’m looking forward to the race and seeing what is possible.”

"FP3 was a much better session than we'd had yesterday. The guys had worked until just before curfew to get the cars ready and they did really well to prepare for Saturday. The car was performing pretty well in FP3, a little oversteer, but that was to be expected with the track temperatures in the afternoon, but we didn't want to make any changes as it was obviously going to be cooler in the evening. "In quali my first run was good - one flying lap on the options that I didn't think I could improve on so I boxed and we waited until there were about three minutes left and then went out for one more flying lap. I definitely got everything I could out of the car on that run and finished about four-tenths from Q2, a realistic view of where we are now with performance. "That's the first time this season we've really had a chance to extract maximum performance from the car, after a good Friday and Saturday, so it's clear what we need to do to improve. We saw last week in Malaysia we have good race pace, but we need to bridge that gap to be able to fight in quali with teams like Lotus and Sauber, and that's the target. For tomorrow I think we're in a much better position than we were in the first two races, particularly with the work we did yesterday, so if we can continue this better reliability the race could be a good one for us."

“The car balance was pretty good today. We lost some time on the straight - 0.3s - which I thought we had got on top of and ultimately this cost us getting ahead of Kobayashi. It’s something we need to look at as we need to get back in front of the Caterhams, not losing out to them. We will hope to recover a little bit of ground tomorrow but it will be tough.”

"We definitely made some improvements overnight and I want to thank everyone in the team for the efforts they put in to move on from what had been a bit of a difficult Friday. My final run on the options was the best of the weekend so far - we'd improved the braking and the overall balance so I went into quali feeling pretty positive about being able to fight with our nearest rivals. "We started Q1 on a set of new options but I had a bit of a lock-up that cost me quite a bit of time on the first run. I wasn't going to get any more out of that set of tyres so we boxed and then went for another final run towards the end of the session. My final lap was definitely my best of the weekend but I didn't have a great outlap so I know I could have found more, but overall I'm reasonably pleased with how Saturday has gone. It's been a much better weekend so far with reliability and with the improvements we made today I'm now focused on having another solid race tomorrow. I'm learning all the time, and with the mileage we've now done here in Bahrain I want to make tomorrow's race my strongest yet - do that and this will have been a good weekend."

“I’m a little bit disappointed after that qualifying session as I thought we had done enough to edge a bit closer to Q2. When everything comes together we aren’t that far away and if you look at the overall spread of times we have made some progress. We didn’t achieve everything we could today, but having said that, I think tomorrow we’ll have a better showing.”

„Heute war nicht viel zu holen. Allerdings wäre der Einzug ins Q2 sicherlich möglich gewesen. Leider sind wir auf den Geraden immer noch zu langsam, und das Übergewicht des Autos macht gerade mir persönlich zu schaffen. Ich hatte nur eine schnelle Runde, da ich beim zweiten Versuch Verkehr hatte und daraufhin gezwungen war, meine letzte schnelle Runde abzubrechen. Wir müssen uns nun auf morgen konzentrieren und es im Rennen besser machen. Dennoch werden Punkte aus eigener Kraft wahrscheinlich nicht möglich sein. Wir arbeiten weiter am Auto, und ich denke, dass es ab den Europa-Rennen weiter nach vorne gehen wird. Ich freue mich darauf und werde meinen Teil dazu beitragen.“