Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Das war bislang ein gutes Wochenende. Generell habe ich hier sehr gute Erfahrungen gemacht. Ich liebe die Stadt, das Wetter und die Strecke. Es ist so toll, auf dieser Strecke zu fahren - sie bietet viel Grip bei diesen Bedingungen. Du kannst das Auto wie ein Go-Kart bewegen. Es ist großartig, auf der Pole zu stehen - Nico und ich wären aber nicht ohne die fantastische Arbeit des Teams hier, das uns ein solches Auto gibt. Einen großen Dank an alle. Natürlich ist die Arbeit am Samstag noch nicht erledigt. Es war ein toller Start - genau genommen kann ich mich nicht daran erinnern, durchweg solch eine starke Performance gehabt zu haben. Auf dem Weg in Kurve eins und während des Rennens kann aber alles passieren. Ich habe Vertrauen in mich, in das Auto und das Team. Schauen wir also, wie es läuft.

Zunächst einmal Glückwunsch an Lewis für diese großartige Pole-Runde. Leider ging bei mir im Qualifying etwas schief, was ich noch nicht recht erklären kann. Im 3. Training räumte ich die Probleme vom Freitag aus und hatte ein großartiges Gefühl im Auto. Doch dann, schon bei der ersten Runde im Q1, musste ich der Garage von starkem Untersteuern im Auto berichten. Ich versuchte, etwas am elektrischen Setup zu verändern. Das funktionierte aber nicht wirklich. Das Positive daran ist, dass dieses Setup mir ein bisschen mehr im Rennen helfen könnte. Untersteuern könnte die Reifen länger am Leben halten, schauen wir also einmal. Selbst wenn ich mit meiner Performance heute nicht glücklich bin, ist für morgen noch vieles möglich. Ich brauche einen guten Start, aber auch später im Rennen bieten sich noch Chancen. Und die möchte ich nutzen!

We had a great recovery from a bad day yesterday. For sure it was not easy to catch up, but all in all I’m proud that we stayed calm, improved the car and had a good turnaround from yesterday, with an optimum result. We know it will be tight tomorrow, but we’ll give our maximum. Remaining realistic, Mercedes is very strong and it would be very tough to beat them, but we also have to look behind us, at teams like Red Bull and Williams which are very strong. Red Bull in particular had a very good Friday but we still managed to outqualify them today, which showed that we are quicker.

I am really happy with the session today and with my qualifying performance. We were very close to Seb which is positive. I found a really good rhythm, obviously we had a few problems yesterday but the weekend as a whole has gone well so far. Our long run pace was pretty handy yesterday so I am confident we can battle it out with the red cars in the race tomorrow. I’m feeling good about it.

It was a pretty normal qualifying, but we did not get the ideal result. We had some difficulties here and there and did not manage to put a very good lap together. This morning we had some issues and could not run with the soft tyres: for sure this did not help and it was a bit of unknown for qualifying, but it was not too bad and the behavior of the car was pretty good. Tomorrow I’ll be on the clean side of the starting grid, we’ll try to make a good start and see what happens in the first few corners. The race will be very long and obviously the Mercedes will be very strong, but if we cannot challenge them we’ll try to be second best. We’ll keep pushing and do our best.

As expected it was a really close qualifying and we were just a few tenths slower than we wanted to be. I got everything I could of from the car so I am pleased with my performance. Tomorrow is the points day, and we have a bit of work to do, but we will fight to the end.

It was tough today, it wasn’t my best qualifying session as I didn’t find a good rhythm. It’s disappointing, we should be stronger at this track. We are starting the race tomorrow from an okay position, hopefully we can move up the grid, it won’t be easy but we’ll try our best.

I am content, I would like to have been further up the grid, but I just didn’t deliver a clean lap. I will focus on making the most of the tyres tomorrow and hope we can have a better car in the race than qualifying. The lower temperature expected tomorrow could also play into our hands. I have a lot to do and let’s hope we both get starts similar to Silverstone.

I'm happy with qualifying in ninth position today, especially after having a few problems in this morning's practice session where, like yesterday, I was struggling a bit with the high track temperatures. We were able to stay calm and it was a good qualifying lap. I think today's result is the maximum we could do and I enjoyed it out there this afternoon! Our objective for tomorrow is clearly to score some points and I will try my best to make that happen.

I think we got everything we could out of the car today, it’s good to be in the top ten. It was a tough qualifying with the wind picking up at the beginning of the session. We struggled a bit with our first run but Q2 was much better. I really pushed hard and put everything together, it was a fantastic lap. Generally, I’m happy with today’s performance and proud of my team for what we have achieved. Tomorrow, temperatures should drop down a little bit which makes it easier, and then hopefully, we can score points.

It’s been quite a difficult weekend for the team, but I have to give credit to the way they have handled the situation and fixed it. The main penalty of yesterday was losing the track time and maybe with more set-up time we would have been able to make it through to Q3 today. The other key factor in the qualifying session was the red flag, which caught me out because I was on my first quick lap and had to abort it. So I only had one lap to get the job done and I just missed out by two hundredths of a second. Despite the limited track time, I feel quite happy and confident in the car, and I think we can perform well tomorrow. Points are still an achievable target.

I had been quite comfortable with the car the whole weekend, we were looking strong. However, in today's qualifying session the conditions changed, as well as the feeling with the car, especially with the brakes, compared to yesterday. All this made me lose my references and I just couldn't get into a rhythm, so unfortunately I struggled to put a qualifying lap together. We really didn't expect to find ourselves in this position as we knew we had the potential to make it into the top ten. We need to analyse this and focus on tomorrow's race. It's not the easiest of tracks to overtake, but we said the same about Monaco and I was able to finish in the points after having started from the pit-lane, so anything is possible tomorrow and we will fight as hard as possible for more points.

It hasn't been the easiest of weekends so far. I was very optimistic on Friday, before the accident, but what happened has affected us quite a lot. We have lost some of the new upgrades that we had brought to the race – parts that were working really well and were making a big difference. When we got back out on track this morning, I wasn’t particularly happy with the aero balance of the car, which has been quite unpredictable. Hopefully looking at the data tonight will help us figure out a way to fix it ahead of the race. Despite these challenges, I am still optimistic we can have a good race and fight our way into the points.

We had potential for Q3, the pace was there early on, I did a good lap in Q1 and placed in the top ten but unfortunately we were not able to repeat this in Q2. We didn’t have as good a progression as we would have liked, especially with the red flag, and then I locked up in turn one which compromised my lap time. I don’t think this is a position that is representative for us. We’ll see tomorrow, the race pace is there – we showed that in Q1 – the potential is there so I think we can put together a good race and score points.

"This afternoon was a pity, because it’s been a good weekend for the team so far: we’d made some useful performance steps, and had regularly been in the top 10 in the sessions, so the problems we had in qualifying were extremely unfortunate. "Jenson had a problem in Q1, and then my car just switched itself off in Q2. Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to continue in qualifying if the car doesn’t make it back to the pits under its own power, so that was that. "Qualifying wasn’t the right time to have these problems, but hopefully we can learn from them for the future."

"I didn’t get any electrical deployment down the main straight as I started my final lap in Q1. The engineers tell me that’s worth about four-tenths – and that just isn’t possible to make up around the rest of the lap. It was unlucky, but it is what it is. "It was a shame too, because I really enjoyed driving the car today. The morning session was a bit tough, but the car immediately felt good this afternoon. The balance was good and we thought we’d easily get through into Q2. We’re not quick enough yet, but at least we have a good balance. "Let’s hope tomorrow is a better day. I love driving around this place – it’s a great old circuit – and we’ll have a close look at what hand we can play tomorrow. But, even so, it’ll be a tough race, because you can’t overtake around here."

Das ist bisher ein schwieriges Wochenende für uns. Während den freien Trainings haben wir einen ordentlichen Job gemacht. Wir versuchten, das Auto im Rahmen unserer jetzigen Möglichkeiten Schritt für Schritt zu verbessern. Natürlich ist es enttäuschend, nach Q1 schon aussteigen zu müssen. Wir konzentrieren uns nun darauf, im Rennen fehlerfrei zu bleiben.

Das war ein schwieriges Qualifying. Es war nicht einfach, die Reifen zum Arbeiten zu bringen, da diese überhitzten. Obwohl die Balance des Autos zufriedenstellend ist, war es aufgrund geringer Reifenhaftung schwierig, mit unseren direkten Konkurrenten mithalten zu können. Es wird kein leichtes Rennen. Falls sich morgen Chancen ergeben sollten, müssen wir diese nutzen.

I had a good qualifying today, so I’m really happy with the way this week is going for me. Tomorrow will be a tough race, but with the weather looking like it might be cooler, I think we can improve a little more. It would be good to give the team a nice result tomorrow on a difficult day, and leave us with a positive feeling as we head into the break.

The weekend has been pretty tough; the hot temperatures have hurt our balance a little and I’ve been struggling to get confidence in the car. Qualifying was okay. My first run didn’t really go according to plan, as I made a mistake through the quick turn out the back, so there was a lot of pressure for the second. I lost quite a bit of time compared to how the first run had been going up until the time I had to abort, so it wasn’t perfect but Roberto and I are still pretty close and we’ll see how things go tomorrow. The temperature is expected to be quite a bit cooler for the race, which should help us.