Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Das war ein fantastisches Qualifying, ganz besonders am Wochenende meines 200. Grands Prix. Ich glaube, dass dies eine meiner drei besten Runden überhaupt gewesen ist. Ich fühlte mich komplett eins mit dem Auto – was wirklich selten vorkommt. Ich konnte voll angreifen und meine Rundenzeit auf meinem zweiten Run gar nicht mehr verbessern. In der Vergangenheit hat sich die Pole in Singapur als wichtig erwiesen. Deshalb befinde ich mich in der besten Ausgangsposition für morgen. Uns ist bewusst, dass uns Daniel im Red Bull stark unter Druck setzen wird, da er auf den superweichen Reifen startet. Es wird ein hartes Duell, aber ich bin optimistisch, dass wir die richtige Strategie auswählen werden. Wir können echt stolz darauf sein, was für eine Qualität in diesem Team steckt. Im letzten Jahr waren wir im Qualifying im Nirgendwo. Daraus haben wir unsere Lehren gezogen und die Lücke geschlossen. Das ist sehr befriedigend.

“I’m pleased with the front row. We set ourselves up well and the lap was clean, but obviously Nico created a big gap and I would have loved for him to not be that far ahead. Even with a perfect lap I don’t think we could have caught that up. So I did what I had to do and the last sector was good. I kept the tyres in good condition and that was important. That was a bit of a weakness earlier in the weekend so I was happy to get on top of that. The supersoft is what we’re going to start the race on and we seem to be the only team in the top ten doing that so hopefully it works for us. We did that in Monaco but then we didn’t get to see if it worked because of the rain on Sunday. If we can get the start we want I think we can control the situation tomorrow, but it’s not a predictable race. There are normally incidents and safety cars so it won’t be straightforward, but I feel good and ready to go. I’m excited.”

Das war bislang nicht mein Wochenende. Ich habe nicht viele gute Runden hinbekommen. Dafür gibt es keinen bestimmten Grund. Ich habe es einfach nicht zusammenbekommen. Einige Leute wollen Kurve sieben als Problemstelle ausgemacht haben. Aber sie ist nicht schwieriger als die anderen Kurven auf der Strecke. Sie ist mit am härtesten für die Bremsen und recht wellig, aber mehr auch nicht. Im Training funktionierte die Aufhängung nicht richtig. Das hat mich beim Bremsen beeinträchtigt. Aber das haben wir behoben und im Qualifying waren die Bremsen kein Problem mehr. Nico hat großartige Arbeit abgeliefert und das Potential des Autos gezeigt. Ich habe mir die Long Runs noch nicht genau angesehen und konnte gestern selbst keine fahren. Nico allerdings schon und obwohl unsere Setups leicht unterschiedlich sind, glaube ich nicht, dass ich mich in einer schlechten Position befinde. Morgen werde ich es herausfinden. Ich befand mich für einen Großteil des Jahres etwas im Hintertreffen, demnach ist das für mich keine neue Situation. Von hier an werde ich mein Bestes geben. Das Überholen ist hier schwierig, aber ich glaube, dass wir die richtige Strategie gewählt haben. Red Bull kann am Start länger mit den superweichen Reifen fahren, aber Nico wird das Rennen wahrscheinlich von der Spitze kontrollieren und es jedem schwer machen, an ihm vorbeizukommen. Warten wir es ab.

“Qualifying wasn’t fantastic and I am disappointed with my starting position. The car felt good throughout the weekend during the practice sessions and I was very comfortable in the car but it didn’t come together for qualifying. I was struggling throughout the whole session to warm up the front tyres and the balance wasn’t quite right, there was a lot of front wheel locking so the lap just didn’t come together, which is a shame. We have good race pace and we also have a different strategy to Mercedes as we start on the supersofts, so we’ll see how it’s going to work out during the race, hopefully we can improve on P4.”

“Today we got more or less what we could from our car. Obviously it’s a bit disappointing given where we finished, but this is a tricky place. The fifth position is not ideal, but I was pretty pleased with my first lap in Q3 and the car was handling well. In the last run I knew I had to push a bit over the limit, trying to improve, but it didn’t pay out. I made some mistakes, I went wide in turn 1 and got sideways. There’s no issue with the car, we are just lacking overall grip and in Singapore that makes a big difference. Tomorrow we have to make a good start and then go from there, there will be different ways of using the tires between the teams. The race is going to be very long, and usually there’s a lot happening, so we have to get the timings right and try to go forward.”

"A very positive day! I think we can be very pleased with this qualifying session. After a few tough races, it was time to get back to where I think we belong and to fight for the top six, half a second clear of the Force India, is something to be proud of. It wasn't as easy as it looked like: I had to stop at the FIA scales in Q2, after that the engine didn't start and I also missed the second run in Q2... So it was very difficult to get into a rhythm, but finally in Q3 I managed to do two consecutive laps on the ultrasofts and the lap came when it counted. This is a huge boost for the team and we know that we have the pace for a good race tomorrow, so we can be confident! I'd say this is one of my best qualifying sessions of my career and I will be going to bed with a big smile on my face!"

"A strong day today. That last lap felt pretty good and, even if I only had one set of new ultrasofts left for Q3, we delivered a solid performance and we can be pleased with a P7. It's always pleasing when the car is at its best on the last lap. It's encouraging to see that we are back where we should be, showing that we are competitive here, and - fingers crossed - tomorrow we can have a good race! It will be a very long one, where anything can happen, but we just need to keep our head down, be patient and take any chance that comes our way. I feel fine, we are well positioned so now we just need to maximize what we achieved today!"

“I’m not entirely happy with eighth place. I believe there was more speed in the car – maybe two of three tenths – but it was quite a messy session and we couldn’t extract the maximum from it. We always felt that Q3 was a realistic target, but we faced some strong competition, especially from the Toro Rossos. It was quite hard to find my rhythm because I had a software issue in Q1 and then the yellow flags in Q2 meant I didn’t complete my second lap. Considering all the circumstances, eighth place is a reasonable result and I think we are in good shape for the race. The long run performance from yesterday looked solid and we’ve done the homework we need ahead of the race.”

“On the face of it, I’m pleased. Getting into Q3 was our first objective, but our next is to be competitive in the race. Nonetheless, our pace still wasn’t great today and we struggled a little – in fact, good pace hasn’t come too easily to us this weekend. “Hopefully we can improve for tomorrow though. Race strategy will be key, and I hope things can turn around for us a bit, especially if we get a good start, attack into the first corner, and come out in a good position at the end of lap one. “It might be a case of damage limitation in the race, but let’s see what we can do.”

We managed to make little improvements from practice to qualifying but this weekend seems to be a little bit tricky for us. It was tight out there - it’s very close with Force India. I felt like I had another very good lap in Q2 but because of the yellow flag I had to slow down a little bit, that’s why Perez is ahead of us, but he’s under investigation so we’ll see what happens. The race pace is looking better than what we’ve seen over one lap here, so we will fight with Force India tomorrow and also try to get ahead of Toro Rosso. That’s a good target for us.

It wasn’t a great qualifying in the end. I was improving on my final lap, but I couldn’t finish it because I had to slow down for the yellow flags. Maybe some other cars didn’t slow down. Looking ahead, the race is tomorrow and we need to be ready for anything in Singapore.

“Up until qualifying, our weekend had been really tough. But we made some changes to the car, and it felt really good this evening. It took a few set-up tweaks and I found my confidence, so I was able to get the best out of the car in quali. “Then, on my final run in Q2, I went a touch wide at the exit of Turn 14 and just tapped the wall on the exit. The impact broke the left-rear wheel and gave me a puncture – it was my fault. “It was definitely possible to get into Q3 today: my final lap in Q2 was looking very similar to Fernando’s before the puncture. “Our long-run pace means the race could be difficult for us, but there’ll probably be some Safety Car periods and a bit of action, so anything could happen.”

“FP3 was much better in terms of car balance. We used the morning session to evaluate certain things and I think we found a good compromise considering we had an updated aero package. Qualifying was very frustrating. It was a missed opportunity. I was preparing myself for that lap and I believe I would’ve had the opportunity to fight for Q3 if I could’ve completed it. We were really unlucky today. However, I’ll take the feeling I experienced during the first part of the lap into tomorrow for the race.”

„Für mich war es heute positiv, in Q2 zu kommen. Insgesamt gesehen war es bisher ein schwieriges Wochenende für mich, weil ich hier in allen Trainings mit dem Auto in unterschiedlicher Weise zu kämpfen hatte. Allein deshalb war es gut, dass ich dennoch Q2 erreichen konnte. Ungeachtet dessen müssen wir uns weiter verbessern, um den Abstand zum Mittelfeld verringern zu können.“

“We were hoping to be more competitive this weekend but it didn’t come together in qualifying. I hope that our race pace will be better as it usually is, so let’s see. It’s a race that tends to have quite a few safety cars, that shows that a lot of things can happen here and we just need to be there to pick up any points that may come our way.”

„Das Qualifying ist für mich enttäuschend verlaufen, weil ich nicht die Performance wie zuvor in den freien Trainings hatte, was mich überraschte. Denn in den Trainings hatte ich ein gutes Gefühl, weil wir bezüglich der Balance des Autos in die richtige Richtung gingen. Doch im Qualifying hatte ich bei meinem ersten Versuch auf der Hinterachse mit der Bodenhaftung zu kämpfen. Und beim Versuch mit dem zweiten Reifensatz kam ich nicht auf die optimale Reifentemperatur. Im Rennen kann hier immer etwas geschehen, darum müssen wir morgen um jede Chance kämpfen.“

“It was a very tricky session for me – pretty much like the rest of the weekend so far. We had a few technical issues yesterday and we had to make some compromises with the set-up to get a better feeling with the car, so to make Q3 was a good result. The final session was very tight and a couple of hundredths would have moved us up the grid. I’m disappointed to receive the grid penalty because I did significantly lift off for the yellow flags during Q2. Tomorrow’s race is going to be very long and the chance of a Safety Car is very high. It’s one of those races where just getting to the end gives you a chance of points: anything can happen and we need to make the most of every opportunity.”

“Qualifying was looking to be going okay; on my final lap I was picking up pace however I pushed the tyres too hard - overheating the rears with a big slide – so the performance fell off a cliff, meaning that I was nowhere in the second half of that lap. If I hadn’t overheated the tyres there was definitely a good few tenths of pace in the offing. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”

“Difficult day. This is a track where you need a lot of downforce and good traction. We don’t have enough of either yet, so we were expecting a tough weekend. Sure enough, it has been a tough weekend. This morning I lost much of the session, but as we were struggling before, it hasn’t compromised us so much.” How are you feeling about the race? “It’s a track that isn’t suited to us, but it’s also a track where things can happen in the race. So that’s what we’re focusing on now – being there when it counts. It’s a spectacular event here, racing under the lights, so I will try to enjoy it.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, to be fair. Yesterday we had issues, we were struggling. I spun the car and crashed yesterday and ended up doing the same again today. That’s not my style of driving, to do that twice in two days. There’s something not quite right, so we really need to analyze what it is. We’ve been trying to resolve the problem. It was qualifying and I was pushing at 200 percent. It’s just been a weird weekend all along.”

Esteban, it looked to us that you were pushing hard. How do you feel about your lap? “It wasn’t a great day for me. We need to investigate the problems we have as we are quite a way off where we need to be. I don’t think more was possible here today with the car we have. It’s been a tough weekend so far but this wasn’t a surprise to us.” And tomorrow? “Tomorrow is another day. Fresh opportunities maybe. There will be a few different strategies at play and it’s a street circuit, which always throws up a few surprises. I love the track and feel very comfortable here, so I’ll keep pushing and see where we can try to make a difference.”

“Already in the first lap, going into turn one, something happened. Then in turn two, through turn five, I felt that the car was not the same. So far we don’t really know what happened, initially I thought it was at the front, but then it felt like the rear bar had broken. I hadn’t felt anything wrong in P3. Then I wanted to come into the box, but in the end we decided to stay out, and then we came in because it was hopeless anyway, we were just not quick enough, and there was no time within three or four minutes to fix the problem. For tomorrow we have a long race in front of us, with a lot of safety cars. At least we have some new tires, and even if for sure it is not an ideal situation. we can still have a good race.”