Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Ich liebe diese Runde, sie fühlte sich fantastisch an. Es war Poesie in Bewegung – das Adrenalin schoss wie verrückt durch meinen Körper. Ich fühlte mich das gesamte Wochenende über gut, schon bei der Grundabstimmung am Freitag. Ich arbeitete eng mit meinen Ingenieuren und Mechanikern zusammen. Gemeinsam erzielten wir kleine Fortschritte bei der Fahrzeugbalance und ich wusste, wenn alles zusammenkommen würde, könnte ich solch eine Rundenzeit fahren. Die Strecke ist sehr hart und du musst alles richtig hinbekommen, besonders in den Bremszonen. Das Team hat heute erneut fantastische Arbeit abgeliefert und ich freue mich auf das Rennen morgen.

Ich hatte bislang ein gutes Wochenende, aber Lewis fuhr einige richtig gute Runden. Heute konnte ich nicht mit ihm mithalten. Aber meine Rennpace war im Freitagstraining sehr gut. Das stimmt mich optimistisch für morgen. Es ist ein langes Rennen und du weißt nie, was passieren wird. Ich werde mein Bestes geben. Es ist klar ersichtlich, dass unser Auto hier in Monza am schnellsten ist. Deshalb erwarte ich erneut ein großartiges Duell mit Lewis. Die Atmosphäre ist fantastisch und es würde mir viel bedeuten, wenn ich hier gewinnen könnte.

Ich hatte bislang ein gutes Wochenende, aber Lewis fuhr einige richtig gute Runden. Heute konnte ich nicht mit ihm mithalten. Aber meine Rennpace war im Freitagstraining sehr gut. Das stimmt mich optimistisch für morgen. Es ist ein langes Rennen und du weißt nie, was passieren wird. Ich werde mein Bestes geben. Es ist klar ersichtlich, dass unser Auto hier in Monza am schnellsten ist. Deshalb erwarte ich erneut ein großartiges Duell mit Lewis. Die Atmosphäre ist fantastisch und es würde mir viel bedeuten, wenn ich hier gewinnen könnte.

"Overall it has been a good weekend so far, putting both cars in the second row. I'm sure we can have a good race from there tomorrow. Hopefully we can take the advantage at the start but we have to wait and see. Once the lights go out we hope we can find a good traction which the tires should give us. It's a long way down to Turn 1 and even if we can try something the race is not one stretch, it's 53 laps around here. To be honest, after I saw the times already in Q1 and in Q2 on a different compound, I knew it would be difficult, but you never know...I was pushing as hard as I could, probably too hard in the first run in Q3 and it wasn't a good lap; fortunately in the end I got it back again. I think overall I'm pretty happy, not so much with the beginning of the lap but I think our race pace is better than the gap in qualifying indicates, so we'll see. We don't mind who's behind us, the important thing is whoever is in front and we still have two cars. The gap is a bit bigger than we would like, but equally the last two races things are coming down a little bit more and things are heading the right way also back in the factory. Even if we don't like it, we need to be a bit patient, I'm sure it will come."

"Today we did the best we could and got the most out of the car. For sure we would have been more satisfied with the first row, but this is the maximum we could achieve. We have to be happy with what we did knowing our limits, but obviously our aim is to be higher up. Tomorrow is a different day and if we can make a very strong start we can build our race. Certain teams will start with different tires, time will tell what will happen in the long run, but we felt that starting with the Supersoft compound was the best choice for us. It's going to be a long race, tricky for the tires, and a lot of things can happen; we have to put ourselves up there and if something happens we have to try to maximize our result. We'll try to make the good choice when it comes to pit stops and see how it pans out. Our rivals have been very strong today, but we'll try our best tomorrow and hopefully we have the chance to challenge them."

I felt it was a very good qualifying today. Fifth is a good position to start in and I’ll be on the clean side of the track, so we definitely maximised the potential of the car. I felt I did one of my best qualifying’s ever. I think we have a good chance to score some good points and I hope Felipe can also come back from P11 with a free choice of tyres to get some strong points for the team.

“We expected to be floating around the top five and we were one thousandth of a second off fifth. It’s a little frustrating but at least there were no major surprises. Qualifying on the soft tyres would have been ideal but the pace was really high and our lap time was close to the cut off. We were forced to use the supersoft instead to be on the safe side getting into Q3. If we had qualified on the soft tyre we could have had a good fight with Ferrari but that will be a little harder now we are on the supersofts. We knew Williams would be quick around here but with DRS and being strong on the brakes we can still pull off some moves. I think we can have good race pace and it would be nice if we can find an edge overnight but either way we can have some fun and challenge for top five.”

“I’m actually pretty happy with qualifying today. I thought we would be more behind but actually everything was very tight. We lost radio communications in the end so I didn’t know where I was and when I came back and saw that I was seventh I thought that’s not too bad. We’re within three hundredths to P5 so I think we can’t complain, especially with the compromises we have to make with the downforce levels. You never know what will happen tomorrow, normally we’re a bit stronger in the race than in qualifying, so let’s hope for a good race. Of course you always want to be further ahead but we have to be realistic and this track is a challenge for us.”

“I think we can be satisfied about today’s result. We have been struggling all weekend, but we worked really hard last night to improve the car balance and made a step forward for qualifying. Some of our rivals seem to have very strong pace, but I think we maximised our qualifying effort with both cars in the top ten. In Q1, it was crucial to put together the perfect lap on my first run; that gave me a bit more freedom in Q2, with an extra set of new tyres available. All in all, it was an exciting session and I had a very intense battle with Nico. The strategy options for the race are quite limited and will depend on what happens during our first stint on the supersoft tyres, and how things go on lap one. Our long run pace looked better than our one lap speed, so hopefully we can match the cars ahead of us and get a good result.”

“I’m as happy as I can be with ninth on the grid. For some reason we’ve struggled to find the harmony and balance with the car this weekend, so it’s a good result to see both cars through to Q3. We’ve tried a lot of things with the set-up and made some small improvements, but I’m still not entirely happy with the balance. Tomorrow is another day - tyres will play a big role and it’s going to be interesting to see how things play out. When the middle of the grid is so close we need to make sure we make the correct strategy calls because the final results will be decided by some very small gaps.”

“First of all, I have to say thank you to the team. I’m very grateful and proud of them because everybody has done a great job in achieving the consistency that has allowed us to work on the details that make the difference. In qualifying, for the first time we broke the top-10 barrier by getting into Q3. It was an amazing effort from everyone involved in setting up the car throughout the weekend and having the communication and level of understanding to make it work. The laps were fantastic. I really enjoyed them and I loved pushing the car. Today we have extracted the maximum from our opportunities and we have to make sure we do the same tomorrow.”

P11 is not where we expected to be today – we thought we would get into Q3 quite easily, so it’s a bit disappointing. I had to go very slow on my outlap before my second run in Q2, and as a result the tyres lacked the grip I needed to improve my time and everyone else was going quicker. The benefit is that I get a free choice of tyres tomorrow for the race which will help us with the strategy, so hopefully we can make the most of that.

“This was probably about where we expected to qualify. We went very well in practice yesterday, so I think we were brought back to reality this afternoon. Q1 was hard for us, and we went for a single new-tyre lap in Q2 and pushed to the maximum, so we have to be happy with ourselves. “We always expected Monza to be hard for our package, but it’s still a bit disappointing to be fighting against a Manor. “We’ll study the strategy overnight, but we’ve got the choice of starting tyre, so will try and take full advantage of everything tomorrow.”

Pascal, great qualifying again today. Happy? “Really happy with qualifying, especially when you take into account how things were for us this morning. We were struggling, I couldn’t get a clear lap; it was frustrating as it wasn’t quite coming together then. But it did in qualifying, when it mattered, and definitely the pace was right there, perhaps more than we expected.” You’ve split the two McLarens and will have Button, Sainz, Kvyat, Grosjean, Nasr, Ericsson, Palmer, Magnussen, and, sadly, your teammate in your mirrors at the start. Not a bad day’s work! That brings great opportunity but also some fierce first lap battles to look out for. “Yes I’m very pleased that we’ve qualified ahead of those guys. It shows just how much we’ve achieved and although I got the most from the package today, there’s still more to find in the car that I hope we can tap into in the race. It will be difficult tomorrow; everyone has a Monza package for Monza! But we’ve put ourselves in the mix and from here we can have a very good race, maybe making the most of some opportunities. As for the start, Spa was disappointing – it was racing – but we start again tomorrow. The first two corners are very tight, so we have to watch out, but I’m excited and confident and I want to do a really great job.”

“This was always going to be a tough weekend for us, but I thought today might have been a little bit better. It didn’t go quite as well as we might have hoped: I didn’t do a perfect lap – I drove some better laps through practice – and Fernando pulled out a little bit on me in Q2 “But we’ll make it good tomorrow. I still think we can race better than we qualified – that’s been a strength of ours for the past few races – and our starts have been good recently, so hopefully we’ll push forwards during the race.”

"P16 is not such a disappointing result if you look at where we were yesterday, so we can be a bit happy because yesterday we couldn't go further than P19, so we've done some good work and made some progress. We battled our way through to Q2 and this was our target, so I'm satisfied to have got the most out of the car today. The only thing is that this isn't where we'd like to be, when we've been fighting for Q3's and P8's all year long up until now... I'd like to be fighting for the top ten, but this is where we are right now, unfortunately. Let's see what we can do tomorrow: it will certainly be a tough race but anything can happen!"

"During today's qualifying session I felt quite comfortable in the car for the first time this weekend and I'd like to thank my mechanics and engineers for this. I was completing a good lap in Q1 but I unfortunately lost some time in the last corner during my final timed lap because of Grosjean – my team would have deserved him to look into his mirror! This cost me about two tenths, which is very annoying... I could've got into Q2. It's a pity, but let's see what we can do tomorrow – I don't expect any miracles and for sure it will be a tricky race, but I will give it my best to finish as high up as possible."

“It was obviously disappointing to go into qualifying knowing I had the five-place grid penalty. We paid the price there that we didn’t have any running time this morning. I’m not very happy with qualifying. It’s great for Esteban to be out there in Q3. It’s great for the team. For me, I really struggled in qualifying to get the best from the car. With the tire pressures so high, it means you cannot push very hard. It’s a bit of a shame. We’ll see what we can achieve tomorrow in the race, but starting 17th is not ideal.”

„Heute konnten wir leider den Sprung in Q2 nicht schaffen, obwohl es durchaus möglich gewesen wäre. Ich hatte einen ganz ordentlichen ersten Versuch in Q1 und wusste, dass mir mit dem zweiten Reifensatz noch eine Verbesserung gelingen könnte. Auch der zweite Versuch lief zu Beginn gut, doch dann verlor ich unglücklicherweise ausgangs der Lesmo-Kurve an Motorleistung, was meine Rundenzeit beeinträchtigte. Andererseits können wir trotz allem auch Positives berichten, denn mit unserem Aerodynamik-Paket haben wir definitiv einen Schritt nach vorne gemacht.“

„Das Qualifying endete mit einer Enttäuschung. Denn natürlich lautete unsere Zielsetzung in Q2 zu kommen – und das wäre heute möglich gewesen. Doch bei mir hat sich die Balance des Autos gegenüber dem dritten Training etwas verändert. So hatte ich mit mehr Übersteuern zu kämpfen und konnte meine besten Abschnittszeiten nicht in einer Runde erzielen. Deshalb reichten meine Rundenzeiten am Ende nicht, um in Q2 zu kommen. Im Rennen wird das Reifenmanagement eine wichtige Rolle spielen.”

“We knew it was going to be pretty challenging here and so it was proved to be. On the positive side, I had a nice race simulation yesterday and the car does feel well balanced so better things should be possible on Sunday. I’ll be hoping for a bit of spice in the race to help us on our way!”

“We expected both Belgian and Italian qualifying to be tough and whilst we qualified better than expected in Spa we didn’t achieve that today in Monza. I hoped that with a really, really fantastic lap, we might just have a shot at Q2. I gave everything I had on the first run, I then tried to get a tow from Lewis on the second one but it didn’t work. For the third run, I just tried really to give it everything but I went off. We’re always aiming higher and I really went for it this afternoon.”

Esteban, sorry to say your qualifying was over before it really began there? “Yes, the car just died. The dash went, the engine cut – I had no information. It looks like a repeat of yesterday’s electrical problem, but we’re taking a good look and exploring everything to make sure that doesn’t happen again tomorrow. ” Aside from the two stoppages, another really positive weekend for you. You seem to be gaining in confidence with each new session. “That’s what makes qualifying so frustrating, I guess. We know the pace is in the car; I’ve been strong here all weekend, particularly this morning, which is why we expected great things from qualifying. Pascal showed how strong the car is, so congrats to him. These problems happen though and now I have to channel that frustration and energy into the race. We need to be focused because anything can happen here, especially with the opening lap and the tight corners at the end of long straights. I think we’ll see a great race tomorrow generally and I hope for me and the team too.”