Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Zunächst möchte ich mich bei all den unglaublichen Fans bedanken, die an diesem Wochenende hier sind. Von Donnerstag bis heute waren es wohl die meisten Zuschauer, die ich hier je gesehen habe. Die Begeisterung, die sie versprühen, ist absolut faszinierend. Vielen Dank an jeden Einzelnen da draußen. Das war nicht mein bestes Qualifying. Wir hatten durchweg eine klasse Pace. Aber ich kam auf meiner ersten Runde im Q3 etwas weit nach draußen. Deshalb wurde diese Rundenzeit gestrichen. Ich berührte nur den Kerb und es zog mich regelrecht nach draußen. Ich hatte gar nicht das Gefühl, rauszukommen, bis das Auto aufsaß und ich von der Linie abkam. Entsprechend viel Druck lastete auf meiner letzten Runde auf mir. Ich saß in der Box und dachte mir: „Ich darf diese Jungs nicht im Stich lassen.“ Die zweite Runde fühlte sich nicht ganz so gut an. Ich war etwas vorsichtiger und stellte sicher, dass diese Runde zählen würde. Ich bin froh, dass es mir gelungen ist. Vielen Dank an das Team für all die harte Arbeit, mit der sie sicherstellen, dass wir dieses Wochenende so eine Performance besitzen. Die Fans motivieren mich mehr als genug. Es wird wie immer ein hartes Rennen. Deshalb ist es entscheidend, dass wir heute Abend und morgen Vormittag unsere Hausaufgaben erledigen. Nur so können wir sicherstellen, dass wir die Reifen, die Strategie und alles andere im Griff haben. Meine Long Run Pace war am Freitag stark und ich habe das Gefühl, dass die Balance für das Rennen gut ist. Ich kann es kaum erwarten, morgen wieder alle da draußen zu sehen!

Das Team hat uns ein unglaubliches Auto zur Verfügung gestellt. Es hat super viel Spaß gemacht, damit zu fahren. Ganz besonders in diesen spektakulären High-Speed-Kurven. Sie sind einfach fantastisch. Es fühlt sich an, als ob das Auto auf Schienen fahren würde. Genau das wünschst du dir als Fahrer. Vielen Dank an alle dafür. Leider war es heute nicht mein Tag. Aber Glückwunsch an Lewis, der eine großartige Leistung gezeigt hat. Aber erst morgen zählt es und noch ist alles drin. Es wird ein super Zweikampf zwischen Lewis und mir. Es gibt einige Möglichkeiten am Start und ich bin gespannt, wie sich der Reifenabbau auf die Strategie auswirken wird. In letzter Zeit hatte ich gute Starts. Entsprechend freue ich mich darauf. Ich werde ganz sicher auf Sieg fahren.

“I think the whole weekend we have been pretty strong and that resulted in a really good Qualifying, the best of my F1 career to date and definitely the best we could do today. Sometimes I have been very unlucky in Qualifying but today has gone well and I was able to show my potential. From now on I will just focus on that and try to keep it up. I’m not focussing on trying to beat my team mate, the points come from the race so that is the important part for me. Silverstone is a great track and I always enjoy driving here. Going through Maggots and Becketts the car is fantastic, no oversteer, no understeer; it feels so nice going through those corners. The car has been performing brilliantly all weekend so I’m looking forward to the race. Hopefully we can maintain this position, it will be important to try and keep up and also keep fighting behind. If it rains we could be a lot closer to Mercedes but if not then we’ll try to just keep position and we will be very happy with that.”

“As a team result it was definitely important to get the second row lock-out. That was our target and we got that so I think we look good for tomorrow. It’s cool to have both of us in front of the Ferraris. I knew this would be a pretty big fight with them here and we managed to at least fight the Qualifying battle so we’ll try and keep them behind us in the race tomorrow. Obviously, I would have preferred third rather than being fourth but that’s how it is today and tomorrow we’ll aim to go better and as good as we can. It’s going to be cooler tomorrow and you never know what’s going to happen, but I think we’re pretty confident where we sit. The two Mercedes will probably fight at the front and behind them it should be a good battle. For sure Ferrari will give us a bit of a run for our money, so there is definitely that third spot up for grabs. You’ll definitely see a race tomorrow.”

“Fifth and sixth is not what we want, we are not happy with where we finished today, but this is the best we could achieve. We know our limits on this track and where we struggle, the circuit layout and the conditions don’t make it very easy for us and we are a bit stuck with the things we can do. This afternoon the car felt the best it has been in the whole weekend, but obviously we were not fast enough. In Q2 I made it very difficult for myself, I spun at the start of my run with the first new set, and then locked the front wheel on the next one. At my last attempt I was able to make it through to Q3, but these things shouldn’t happen. Race conditions are always different and can change a lot here, usually we are stronger in the race and hopefully tomorrow will be the same. We’ll try to make a good start, make the tires work and take the right decisions”.

I felt like I got everything out of the car today, which is always a nice feeling as a driver. I was hoping we could be closer to the front-runners. There is a little bit of a gap which we are working flat out for, so the thing to do now is to focus on the race. It’s a new day tomorrow and weather may play a part in the race, so if we can get our tyres to work better than in Austria, I’m sure we can have a good strategy for a good race.

"I'm extremely happy with today's qualifying result, especially after having had quite a tough Friday yesterday. We stayed until late last night to analyse all the data, we made a few changes on the car and today I felt very comfortable – we found half a second of performance that gave us the opportunity to fight for Q3. It's incredible how tight the midfield is, but I did a good lap, managed to get that extra tenth and be the top car of the midfield teams. To start from P7 tomorrow is a great achievement for the whole team and I like to thank everyone for their constant hard work. We definitely needed a good qualifying after three comebacks in the last races! Tomorrow we start in a very good position, on the clean side of the grid, and hopefully we can keep going forward - it will be a tricky race for us as the cars around us have better pace, but we will definitely try to beat our competitors and fight for as many points as possible."

“It looks like I will be starting from P8 and that’s pretty much where we expected to be. It was very tight with McLaren and Toro Rosso in that session and the margins were very small. Unfortunately my final lap in Q3 was deleted because I ran a little bit wide through Copse corner and couldn’t keep the car inside the track limits. Without that, I would have been a place higher up. I think the stewards are correct to insist on these track limits and it’s something we discussed yesterday in the drivers’ meeting, so you have to accept the penalty. Looking ahead to the race, there’s talk of showers once again, and to be honest I don’t mind if we get some rain because it would mix things up. Whatever happens, I just want to have a strong race and bring home some good points.”

“This weekend has been positive for us so far. “We’re still missing a little bit of speed along the straights, but we can fortunately compensate for that through the long corners around here. So I think we’re in a position where we could score points tomorrow. “In qualifying, we ultimately didn’t have the speed to climb any higher in Q3; but starting ninth, following Sebastian’s [Vettel] penalty, is a good place for us, particularly after two races with reliability issues. “There’s wet weather forecast for tomorrow, and some drops of rain in the middle of the race would make it more fun for me, so I think we’re ready for anything that comes our way. “I’d love to see two McLaren-Hondas in the points tomorrow.”

“The changes we made to the car after final practice helped us take a step in the right direction. Missing out on Q3 was not ideal, especially by such a small margin, but I am confident we can make good progress in the race. We have the advantage of being the first car with a free choice of tyres and, if I can make a good start, we should be able to fight for some points. Overtaking is quite tricky here so the first few laps are very important and you need to get good track position. Degradation is high, but we have done a lot of work to manage it and we have a good understanding of the tyres, so I think we can be competitive tomorrow.”

“I’m not happy with my lap, the car was better than this morning. I was in a very good lap but I lost the car at Stowe in the first run, trying a bit too hard, then in the second one I went wide in Turn 1 and lost the car from there. On this track it seems we are a bit behind, I think we have done good steps in the past, but probably not enough, also compared to other people, so I think there’s a lot of catching up for us to do. We need to make the car quicker, to put more downforce in it, make it more efficient at the same time, and add a bit of power. Replacing the gearbox is something we have to accept, and we did accept it going into the session. It’s not something that is in your head when you start a race, I look forward for a good one tomorrow, the pace is there, we don’t belong where we start the race, and that’s why I’m quite sure we can make good progress. I hope for a good start, a good first lap and then we’ll see. Maybe we’ll have some rain, anyway we need to keep our head down, keep calm and just go racing and enjoy”.

It definitely wasn’t a good qualifying for me today, because it was hard to make the rear tyres work in a way that wouldn’t lose performance throughout my lap. Unfortunately, I couldn’t put my lap together because of that. I was a little bit surprised because it’s not the first time we’ve had these issues with the tyres. Hopefully the car will be set-up in a way for the race tomorrow that the pace will be more consistent, because we need to try to make it work tomorrow.

“I think the top-10 for us is sometimes a bit optimistic in qualifying. We’re always better in the race. In qualifying, we’re still missing a few things that we can improve, but it takes a bit of time. We had added a bit of front flap. It was maybe a bit too much. The conditions out there were also tricky today. The wind picked up a little bit at the end. It caused me a big snap into turn 15 (Stowe). The wind can really change the balance of the car here, depending on the direction. If we hadn’t had that, then we could’ve been closer to moving into Q3. Thirteenth for tomorrow is not the worst place to start the race. If our long-run pace is good, that should help us.”

“Q1 was pretty good. I struggled a little in the beginning with the tires, but then things started to get underway. In Q2, I had traffic in the first stint, which wasn’t ideal. During the second stint, the wind picked up and it became a little gusty out there, which didn’t allow us to extract the maximum from the car. However, we were pushing all the way, getting everything out of it that we could. We’re optimistic. We’ve done a good job as a team, so I’m confident that tomorrow will be a great race.”

"How frustrating! I was held up by Magnussen from Turn 13 onwards during my lap in Q2, so my qualifying was unfortunately compromised... It would've been interesting to see what my lap would've looked like without this happening, but we were just stuck behind him. To start from P15 is disappointing and not what we were expecting, but the pace of the car isn't bad so hopefully we can do a good race tomorrow."

“We had three sets of tyres that we used for Q1 knowing that if we got through to Q2 we wouldn’t be able to fight for much higher: our maximum today was P16 and Q2. On my first set of tyres I went wide and over the track limits, which meant that I had my lap time deleted. On my third and final run I know that I didn’t run wide. Then, for Q2, I didn’t have any new tyres so we went out and tried our maximum for the run in that second session. We extracted the most out of the car today in terms of set-up and using the tyres. To make it into Q2 is probably more than we’d expected so I’m more than happy that the team is fighting as it does.”

“It hasn’t been a lucky weekend for me so far. One of the rear-wing endplates became detached from the floor on my first flying lap in Q1, and the rear end of the car slowly deteriorated for the remainder of the lap. “It happened into Turn Eight, which is where the high-speed corners start, and where you need downforce, so I’m surprised I even did the lap time I did, to be honest. “We tried to fix it in order go out again for a second run, but sadly we ran out of time. “Still, I’m smiling because it is what is. We’ll deal with it, and we’ll come out of it stronger. I’ll be hoping for rain and something unexpected to happen in the race, and I’m still aiming for points tomorrow.”

“It was a very difficult session. I had been feeling good in the car all weekend but the last set of tyres didn’t switch on for some reason. Until then I was feeling OK but I had really bad grip for the last run, couldn’t improve and then missed out. I’m disappointed as I think there is more in there to improve. For the race it’s the same plan as usual – you never know what will happen. We showed in the last Grand Prix that you can make up positions and in Russia we came through as well, but it’s not going to be easy. The weather looks varied, which can be a help. We will keep our heads down and get on with it.”

Congratulations Rio. A strong qualifying performance for you today. “Yes, I’m quite happy with that performance. We always knew that this track would be more difficult for us, but personally, for me, it was a strong and consistent lap.” You also managed to keep Sauber behind you? “Yes, we managed to beat the Sauber, but we’re not as close to Renault as we would like. Hopefully we will be a little stronger in the race tomorrow, as our long run pace is better.”

On the face of it, a more disappointing day for you, but then you did come into the weekend predicting a more difficult time. “I’m disappointed of course, but not surprised. I’ve been very aware that this is a very different circuit. We’ve been struggling with tyre temperature here again and we tried many different things with the set-up to try to progress. I just wanted us to improve step by step but we didn’t manage to find a solution unfortunately.” What about the race tomorrow? Could that be a better story? “In dry conditions, I’m afraid we don’t have the car to do what we did in Austria. Our long run pace is a little better and then there’s the weather forecast, which is quite unpredictable. Of course, we hope for crazy weather to work in our favour, because what last weekend showed is that we can make the best of situations. I’m looking forward to it, as always, and I’ll do my best for the team’s home crowd. I’m expecting a challenging day though.”

“First of all, I am glad that Marcus is ok after his accident. Looking back to qualifying, it was a disappointing session for me. I was confident that I could have finished a few positions higher today, as I was quite satisfied with the balance of the car until qualifying. My stint on the first set of soft tyres was ok, but then on the second set of soft tyres I had a lot of oversteer and was not able to improve my lap time significantly. We have to understand why we had such a shift with regard to the car’s balance. It will be a difficult race tomorrow, but the weather can also comes into play.”

“It was obviously a huge accident. I went a bit too wide on the kerb in Turn 15 and touched the grass, which was a bit wet. I lost the car and this was followed by a big impact with the barriers. I went to the medical centre, but, because of the impact, they wanted to send me to hospital. Many check-ups have been done and things are looking good. I am feeling a bit sore, but everthing else is ok. It is obviously disappointing that I was not able to participate in qualifying, but the most important is that I am alright. I apologise to my car crew that I have caused them a lot of work.”