Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

"I've been feeling great all weekend, having felt incredibly comfortable in the car. It gave me the confidence to push even harder at the end of Q3 which meant I pulled out a great lap to recover pole from Lewis. Suzuka is a really difficult circuit because of the varying corners which means it's even more difficult to get the car set up just right. It's great to start from P1, but as we've realised, it's not the most important thing this year as you also need to get the start and the race strategy spot on. Lewis will push hard and so will the Ferraris and the Red Bulls. It's clear that both these teams looked very strong on the high fuel. It will be an exciting race tomorrow, in front of Suzuka's amazing fans. I'm definitely looking forward to it!"

"This weekend has not been that easy. I'd been veering one way with the setup of the car and then had to shuffle back going into qualifying and it felt like I was in no-mans-land as we approached Q1. With that in mind, I'm extremely happy that I was able to bring it back to that kind of gap. Of course, starting on pole is always a good thing but let's hope the work we've been doing on the starts pays off. It's also still hard to know at this stage what the weather is going to do but I'll do the best I can tomorrow."

“Not such a bad result in qualifying but I think the whole team expected a bit better. We wanted to be in front of the Ferraris, we were very close but the balance of our car wasn’t quite right. In the low speed corners where we are usually very strong it didn’t quite work for us today, this could be the changing conditions but I’m not entirely sure. Staring fourth on the grid tomorrow gives us a chance of a good result so we can still be positive. Our race pace looks ok but everyone looks quite strong at the moment so it is quite unknown how tomorrow will play out. It will be hard to overtake here and like you can see from qualifying it is very close, I expect the same during the race. If we can have a good start like in Malaysia then we can achieve a good result. We will all sit down and work through this evening to make sure we are as prepared as possible for the race."

“To be honest I was hoping for a bit more from qualifying. We knew it was going to be close with Ferrari and we were hoping to get in front of them but they had good pace. It’s a little frustrating as we were losing time down the straights and we need to find out why. I felt like I was doing all I could and I think the lap itself was okay. In the second last lap, I think I found a little bit more in Sector 1 but I felt like it hurt the tyres in the last part of the lap. I’m happy with our long run race pace and should have similar pace to Ferrari, we expect them to be our real rivals in the race. We also expect Mercedes to be conservative and turn down their power in the race, so we’ll see what happens. We’ll gain a position through Sebastian’s penalty, starting P5 is better than P6 and hopefully we have a good battle on our hands.”

“I feel pretty good after that and I’m very pleased for the whole team. We brought all the updates we had. We made the new front wing work on the car and that made a difference in qualifying. The whole session went very smoothly. I didn’t get my DRS (Drag Reduction System) on the last stretch of the final corner. But, we’re here and tomorrow’s a long race at a very difficult track. Tire degradation will be very important. Hopefully, if the balance is as good tomorrow as it was today, we should be fine.”

“It has been a great result for us as a team; as for myself, obviously I messed up a bit in Q3 with the last sector, and lost a bit too much time. But, all in all, it has been a very good qualifying, our car has been handling well all through the sessions, due to a combination of many things, and it’s satisfying to be with both cars ahead of the Red Bulls. For sure, tomorrow I’ll have to start a bit further back because of the grid penalty, but this is what it is, we take it. Even so, I think the speed will help us to come back and then we’ll see what we can do. I think it will be a close fight. Much will depend on how people handle their tires, because in the first stint everybody starts on the same compound, then we see how the strategies develop.”

“It was a very intense qualifying session and there were lots of competitive cars out there – I even finished with the same time as Romain [Grosjean] and I was lucky to be classified ahead of him. I am very happy about our performance, especially my lap in Q3: the margins are so tight around us and the smallest mistake makes the difference between starting seventh or twelfth, but today we did a really good job as a team. Starting one place ahead of where we qualified, because of Vettel’s penalty, puts us in a strong position for a good result tomorrow. If we have a normal race, with no strange circumstances, we can aim to score some important points. The strategy will depend on the weather conditions tomorrow, especially if it becomes much cooler than today. Overall I feel positive: we have done 70% of the job today, but the remaining 30% tomorrow is the most important.”

“Overall the car has been behaving quite good; we had suffered from some understeer, but we have been slowly getting better with the set up and the speed and I’m positively surprised how competitive and close to the Mercedes we were. Today the car was a bit less understeering, and this helped a lot in the first part of the lap. The third position is not too bad but obviously we want to be higher up. This is what we’ve got now and it’s a pity that Seb has a penalty, because the team had quite a strong session today. Obviously we are happy, but we still have some work to be done to improve things and we have to do another good day tomorrow. We sure have some speed and it’s not going to suddenly disappear tomorrow. Usually we are a bit better in the race, but we have to wait and see: it will depend on conditions and other stuff but we’ll do our best.”

“I’m pretty happy with today and I’m starting in a good position tomorrow. My final lap in Q3 was looking really strong, but I lost a couple of tenths at the final chicane – it was okay going in, but I didn’t get the best exit from the corner. So maybe I could have been a little higher up the grid with a totally clean lap. We saw again today just how close things are in the midfield and I expect a big fight tomorrow. Track position is crucial here so it’s especially important to make the most of our starting positions with a clean start.”

“I feel so happy for the whole team. It was surprising to arrive into qualifying and put both cars into Q3 as we started the weekend in a very difficult position. We lost a lot of practice time in FP2 and we were not completely happy with the balance of the car, but as a team we managed to recover completely. It’s a great skill that we need to keep hold of as this really made the difference today. We pushed the maximum we could and we fought right until the end. I feel very proud of the whole team. They all deserve this as they’ve been doing a great job. Without them, without my crew, my engineers, my mechanics, today would not have been possible. So, I dedicate what we have achieved today to them. Tomorrow, I’ll be pushing to the maximum and I won’t be looking back.”

Looking at our qualifying performance here from the past few years it’s disappointing not to be in Q3. We just weren’t quick enough today. I had a little bit of traffic in Q2, but the speed just wasn’t there. The positive thing from today is that we have a free choice of tyres for the race. We have the same opportunity that we had in Malaysia to do something different with the strategy, hopefully we can make good use of that.

That wasn’t the qualifying we expected. I think the biggest surprise were the laptimes from Haas. They qualified in front of both us and Force India in Q2. We are one tenth slower than the Force Indias, like we were in Malaysia, but I’m surprised by Haas. It’s true that our laptimes on the new tyres wasn’t so great, so I’m a bit disappointed with that. The race tomorrow will be tough. It will be a very big fight. But we’ll try everything we can to have a strong race and hopefully score some good points. All we can do is try.

"I'm quite happy with my qualifying session. Both my Q1 and Q2 laps were good and to be honest I don't think there was much more to extract from the car today and I did my best. I also think the whole team around me works very well, we now follow our own system which works well – they deserve the good laps I put in! We will now go for it in tomorrow's race and see how close we can get to those point positions. It will be interesting if the weather mixes it all up a bit, but it's not something we can ask for and we are ready for any scenario – we will just settle in and see what we can do from a P13. I'm feeling better and better in the car, much more confident every time and I look forward to tomorrow's race!"

"A bit of a tough and tricky day for us. I missed out on FP3 due to an issue with the CU, so I was many laps behind the rest of the field when it got to Qualifying. At a track like this one it's very difficult to recover your rhythm... I had to play catch-up from the start and it was a bit of a stressful session, nearly not making it into Q2 because of timing... Luckily we did, but then in Q2 I wasn't improving my lap-time during my second run and then made a mistake when trying a different line and entry speed at Spoon... It's the type of things you usually try in FP3 if I say the truth! It's therefore a Saturday that definitely didn't go our way from the beginning of the day onwards, but hopefully tomorrow will be a better day! Looking at the positive side, if today we had a bad Quali but still ended up P14, it means that the car has the potential to be a bit more ahead. We have a good race pace for tomorrow – it might be tough to get to the points as there are a few other teams quicker than us, but as soon as something happens we should be the best of the rest."

“After some strong weekends, where we made it into Q3 and were able to fight for points, qualifying 15th and 17th is not the best place to be starting Honda’s home grand prix. “So far, we just haven’t been able to find the speed in the car this weekend. We’ve been struggling with high-speed and straight-line performance too, so it was difficult to know which way to go in terms of downforce and balance. “It looks like our performance is changing from circuit to circuit, and we need to analyse exactly why we seem to be underperforming here. “Unless it rains tomorrow, it’ll be difficult for us to recover enough positions in the race in order to score points. But I’ll be attacking tomorrow – I have nothing to lose.”

“On the one hand I’m quite pleased; I think we did well to get into Q2. Unfortunately I had a yellow flag on my final lap in the session and that probably cost a couple of tenths, which would have put me 12th or 13th so that’s a little bit disappointing. We started 19th and scored a point last weekend in Malaysia, so there is definitely a chance to do the same tomorrow. We’re looking similarly competitive, the race will be long and tyre strategy will play a hand… There are a lot of similarities to the last time out so we’ll keep pushing and see what happens.”

“We had good pace in FP3 this morning and looked strong, so I was hopeful for qualifying, especially as the car and conditions felt similar to this morning. We seem to lose pace, however, which was surprising. Maybe others picked up theirs, I’ll have to look at the data. In the position we are now to start tomorrow’s race, a bit of rain might not be bad! Regardless, we will race as hard as always and we all know a lot can happen in 53 laps.”

“It has been a tricky weekend so far. Compared to last weekend in Malaysia, here it has been more challenging to point the car in a direction where I wanted it to be. Therefore, it was rather a difficult qualifying, so we cannot be satisfied with this result. It is a new day tomorrow, and we will fight back.”

“It was a disappointing qualifying for us. My first run in Q1 was good, and I put in a decent lap time. When I went out for the second try I could not bring the tyres up to the ideal working window. In the end I could not improve my lap time. I am very disappointed with this result. We need to understand what happened.”

Well done, Esteban! You seem happy and disappointed in equal measure, though. More in the tank? “Quite a bit more in the tank, unfortunately. I made a small mistake in Turn 14, which I’m pretty unhappy with, and which could have put us ahead of Sauber. So it was pretty tight with them and I feel bad for the guys because everything on my side has been strong this weekend. I hope to make it up to them in the race tomorrow.” How about another start like Sepang? That was awesome! “Yeah, it was. That would be great. Turns 1 and 2 here are very different to Sepang though. It’s about man and machine and the team do a pretty good job of the starts, so I’ll give it everything I’ve got off the line and we’ll see. In the meantime, well done to the team. We’ve made good progress here that is not always easy for those outside to see, but I’m hoping it will come good in the race.”

Pascal, Lady Luck just not shining on you here this weekend? “No, it’s true. Last night we had to change the gearbox, so I have a grid penalty, then this morning we had another problem that meant I wasn’t able to complete my qualifying preparation; I didn’t get to finish my soft tyre run. So it’s difficult to find the positives in the weekend so far. I guess the grid penalty doesn’t affect us from where we’re starting, but it’s still pretty disappointing.” We know you’re not one for letting your head drop though. What’s the big comeback plan? “No, I try to start every day as if it’s a new one, particularly on race day. I love the Suzuka track; it’s really nice and challenging, and the first sector in particular is awesome. It will be tough, but we need a good start, a good strategy, fast pit stops and some opportunities to come our way. We’ll push hard for a good result.”

“It’s been a tough weekend so far. I switched over to Fernando’s set-up this morning after failing to find a balance on Friday – my car just wasn’t working. “To be that close to Fernando – just three-hundredths off his best time in Q1 – after the weekend we’ve had so far, really wasn’t too horrific. Our lap-time today is simply a fair reflection of how fast our car is around here – and that meant I went out in Q1. “Our package works best in lower-speed corners and under heavy braking; Suzuka has lots of mid- to high-speed corners and long bends – plus long straights – which are all trickier for us.”