Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Ich bin mit der ersten Hälfte des Wochenendes zufrieden und ich muss mich bei meinen Ingenieuren bedanken. Sie haben das Setup perfekt hinbekommen. Ich fühle mich großartig im Auto. Im Q3 fuhr ich eine ziemlich coole Runde, die ich im zweiten Run nicht verbessern konnte. Aber morgen kommt es drauf an und es wird ein toller Kampf um den Sieg zwischen den Top-5. Ganz besonders, da wir nicht viel Zeit hatten, um Long Runs zu üben. Sebastian und die beiden Red Bull sehen stark aus, aber ich bin zuversichtlich, dass unser Auto unter diesen Umständen bestmöglich vorbereitet ist. Auch möchte ich den Veranstaltern danken, die solch ein fantastisches Event organisiert haben. Die Stadien sind absolut phänomenal. Ich konnte das auf meiner Runde nach dem Q3 genießen und es war unglaublich. Ich freue mich sehr auf das Rennen.

Das war heute großartig da draußen. Es hat mir wirklich sehr viel Spaß gemacht und die Zuschauer sind absolut fantastisch. Sie feuern uns pausenlos an. Das ist großartig. Der Grip auf der Strecke nahm zu, wodurch es mehr Spaß gemacht hat. Insgesamt war es ein ruhiges Qualifying, ohne viel Stress. Bei einigen Rennen macht die Pole einen echten Unterschied aus. Aber hier stört es mich nicht so sehr, Zweiter zu sein. Denn es ist ein sehr langer Weg bis zur ersten Kurve und ich habe vor, morgen gut zu starten. Die Strecke entwickelt sich weiter und verbessert sich Stück für Stück. Ich weiß nicht, ob es heute Abend regnen wird, aber wenn ja, dann wird die Strecke dadurch gesäubert und dann geht es morgen von vorne los - das wäre eine echte Herausforderung. Wir wissen nicht, welche Strategie die beste sein wird oder wie lange die Reifen halten werden. Aber all das finden wir morgen heraus! Ich freue mich auf einen guten Kampf, denn heute war es sehr eng.

To be fair, when I woke up this morning and even after P3, I thought we would be a bit closer to the Mercedes than we actually were in qualifying: unfortunately, they proved to be very strong. They were doing two consecutive laps, they were not using all the energy in one lap, so we need to be careful as I think they will be very quick also tomorrow in the race. But we will try our best, we are here to fight, we have nothing to lose. Nico is the primary target, we want to keep second position in the championship and we’ll do everything we can to achieve that. I hope that our race pace tomorrow is going to be as good as it looked yesterday; obviously it is always difficult to know what other people are doing, but considering that we were on the harder tire, on Friday we seemed to be very quick on the long-runs. I hope we can be quick tomorrow as well, and make the tires last. I think this will be the key for the race because on paper it looks easy, but then, with all the sliding around from low grip surface, we’ve seen many people struggling to keep their tires alive.

Qualifying was interesting today. It was all quite clean in Q1 and Q2, but the track is new and it’s very easy to make a little mistake that can be quite costly, so perhaps no one had the ideal lap in Q3. I think P4 reflects our speed; I could have maybe been a couple of tenths quicker in Q3 but anyway it wouldn’t have put us any higher, as P3 was quite a long way ahead. We have done our best today and it gives us some good opportunities for tomorrow. In a new race on a new track, everything can happen, but we have to wait and see how fast we are and how much we can make the most of any opportunities. I’m not setting our expectations too high; I just want to have a good, clean, consistent race and grab some good points.

Practice looked really good but then all through Qualifying I wasn’t really that happy. We just struggled to find the right feeling with the car and the set-up. The asphalt was changing every time. It had a bit of grip and then it didn’t so it’s challenging. We didn’t change much to the car but it’s one of those sessions where you always try to find that little bit more but it never came in the end. I knew that Ferrari and Williams would try to give us a real challenge. For the race, everyone will most likely try a one-stop, because it’s a new surface and not too aggressive on the tyres. It might rain overnight which will change the track again. It’s changing all the time so I hope it will be an exciting race. In the end to be fourth and fifth as a team is not bad and we can definitely race from there. On another note, watching the rugby was a bit painful as well, I really do feel for the boys.

The track has improved a little over the weekend and Qualifying was very close, as we expected. It is a shame Red Bull are in front of us, but we have the advantage of straight-line speed which will help when overtaking. The aim tomorrow is to move forward.

We are sixth and seventh so we cannot be too happy with our performance. I did my quickest time on the first set of tyres in Q3. I tried all I could on the second set but I couldn’t improve my time. It sets the beginning of what could be a very difficult race where many things can happen, accidents, cars off the track, rain, so we need to wait and see as it can all change. I hope we can move forward tomorrow.

I'm very happy with P8! It wasn't an easy qualifying for me today, especially after missing FP2 yesterday and struggling a bit this morning in FP3. But we managed to turn the car around very quickly; to make it into Q3 and manage to put a very good lap together, which wasn't easy, is great! I'm very happy with today's performance and it's nice to be in front of both Force India's. Tomorrow's race will be exciting. It looks like it could rain, and that would be great news for us, as our car is very good in the wet. I like this track, and it's very special to see so many fans in the grandstands, they are very passionate and you can really feel their support, especially when you come into the stadium section, it's very cool! Hopefully we can put on a good show for them tomorrow!

I felt very privileged to be driving at home today and to feel so much support from the fans. They have given me lots of energy and I’m extremely motivated to give them something to celebrate this weekend – that’s the best way to repay them. I think we did a good job today and we are in a competitive position for the race. We were aiming to be the last car on track during Q3 to try and make the most of the track evolution, but in the end it didn’t really make a huge difference. I think eighth was possible, especially when you look at the small gap to Max [Verstappen]. For tomorrow expectations will be high, I know that, but it’s a very positive pressure and I just need to say focussed, work through my usual routine and treat tomorrow as a normal race. The car is working well, we’ve done our homework, and I want to move forward in the race.

I think we pretty much got everything we could out of this session. I haven't felt 100% confident with the car, but in those conditions the final lap I did was really good. Our one-lap pace is strong enough to make it into Q3, but I’m feeling better about our long run pace and confident for tomorrow. The weather could play a part: there is a threat of rain, which could mix up the field and make the race really interesting. It's a new track so we don't have as much information compared to other places, which leaves a few question marks going in the race, but hopefully there will be a happy ending for us. It would be a good reward for the fans, as you can feel all the love and attention that we are getting from this amazing crowd. I may not be the home hero here, but I am still getting a lot of support which is an extra boost.

I'm quite happy with today, we made a big improvement to the car from yesterday to today and I felt much more comfortable with everything. We had good pace and it's just a pity that we didn't make it into Q3 – unfortunately we just didn't put everything together and went out too early on the Option tyre; the track was evolving continuously. But to start from P11 tomorrow is not bad, we can choose what tyre to start the race on and we also have a good chance to score more points. I think tomorrow's going to be a good day!

We’re at a very high altitude, at a track with very low grip, requiring good downforce – which we know are not our strongest points - so we weren’t massively confident of our performance heading into qualifying. We did better than expected, even though we struggled to get the tyres to work. We still have a good opportunity tomorrow; it’s a long race where everyone’s brakes and engines are likely to struggle. The start will be very important; we’ll try to use all our experience and make a decent result happen.

I was hoping for a little bit better from qualifying but we were struggling for front grip and the rear stability wasn’t fantastic. We expected more of a benefit from running with the new tyres but we weren’t able to unlock it. It’s a long race, we usually have good race pace so let’s go for some more points.

Wir konnten die Balance des Autos im Verlauf des Wochenendes verbessern. Noch am Vormittag hatte ich mit dem Auto zu kämpfen und war mit der Performance nicht zufrieden. Startplatz 14 ist deshalb in Ordnung. Dennoch bin ich etwas enttäuscht, weil ich im Gegensatz zu Q1 in Q2 nicht mehr das Maximum aus dem Auto holen konnte. Speziell im letzten Sektor fehlte es mir an Bodenhaftung auf der Hinterachse. Wie auch immer, es ist wichtig, dass wir von Training zu Training Fortschritte erzielen konnten.

Das war ein schwieriges Qualifying für mich. Ich hatte vor allem mit dem zu geringen Grip-Niveau zu kämpfen. Bei meinem zweiten Versuch in Q1 hatte ich nicht genug Haftung auf der Hinterachse und kam deshalb meist beim Kurveneingang sehr ins Rutschen. Dieser Sache müssen wir auf den Grund gehen. Von dieser Position zu starten ist nicht zufriedenstellend. Doch das Rennen morgen wird lang und wie immer gilt es, so viele Plätze wie möglich gutzumachen.

It wasn’t the best start to the day, with the braking issues I experienced in FP3, but I’m pretty pleased with the way the team rectified that problem and we were able to give qualifying all we had. The grip level has improved with each new session, so this morning was frustrating because of the level of evolution I could see was happening. That was valuable preparation time for qualifying, but we don’t seem to have fared so badly, and today was in fact the team’s best qualifying performance since Monza. It was a scrappy lap because of all of that, so there was perhaps some time to be gained, but I’m happy with where I’ll start the race and I’m very excited about racing here tomorrow. It’s a great track and it provides an element of challenge that could benefit us in the same way as Austin; we just need to be prepared.

I went out on my first run and the throttle was sticking, so I had to abort the run. On the way in I was called to the weighbridge, so I ended up only having one run. The combination of the low grip track conditions, and the fact that we haven’t had as much running as we would have liked here, has put us on the back foot, so I’m actually quite happy to be as close as I am to Alex. It’s incredibly frustrating to be honest. That aside, I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow and a good battle with Alex.

“We went into qualifying knowing that our penalties would relegate us to the last row of the grid. So there wasn’t much to gain from qualifying this afternoon. It was more about finding out how the car felt; using up tyres and engine mileage for no reason made little sense. “We need some rain and chaos tomorrow. We have plenty of fresh sets of tyres – both dries and wets – so let’s see what we can do. Hopefully, we can recover some places in the race.”

This morning we had a problem with the car in P3, and we had to change the engine and the gearbox. It was a very tight call to put everything back together, but the guys did an excellent job to make the car ready for Q1 in that small lapse of time available. However there was not enough time and not everything was 100 per cent, I still had a small issue with brakes. Actually, they were working, but then they locked up on one lap. Anyway, with all the penalties we are getting tomorrow, our best option was to do well enough to make it to Q2 and not really do anything after that. We did three fast laps so that we can check later that everything is ok with the car and try to make a good run out of it.

“We had a misfire on my engine this morning, and we had to change it to make sure everything was okay for tomorrow, which meant I couldn’t qualify. “Whatever happened in qualifying, I was always going to start last because of my penalties. Still, the racer in me wanted to get out there and do the best I could. “I’ve done hardly any laps this weekend, and, without any high-fuel running under my belt, the race is going to be difficult for me. “It’s been a tough weekend – but I’m still looking forward to tomorrow. It’s always fun racing on a new circuit, and it’ll be exciting too, because you never know what might happen.”