Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Ich bin überglücklich über meine erste Pole in der Formel 1. 2017 ist meine fünfte Saison in der F1, es hat also ein paar Rennen gedauert. Aber wir haben es geschafft und hoffentlich ist es die erste von vielen. Es fühlt sich gut an. Mir war nicht bewusst, dass seit fast zehn Jahren kein Finne eine Pole geholt hatte. Ich bin wie immer sehr stolz darauf, für Finnland zu fahren, und mein Land zu vertreten. Auf dieser Strecke ist es nicht einfach, alles richtig hinzubekommen. Die Strecke ist technisch recht anspruchsvoll und es gibt einige knifflige Kurven. Aber ich fühlte mich immer wohler im Auto und dann bekam ich die Runde zusammen. Glücklicherweise reichte sie für die Pole. Herzlichen Dank an das gesamte Team, das mir dieses Auto gegeben hat. Es ist super, dass wir beide aus der ersten Reihe starten. Wir haben an diesem Wochenende richtig gute Arbeit abgeliefert und uns auf die abendlichen Bedingungen konzentriert, um die bestmögliche Rundenzeit aus dem Auto herauszuholen. Jetzt genießen wir das Ergebnis für einen kurzen Moment. Aber mein Hauptaugenmerk liegt bereits auf dem Rennen. Es macht keinen Sinn, jetzt zu träumen anzufangen. Es geht nur darum, das Beste aus dem Rennen herauszuholen. Wir können morgen als Team sehr stark sein.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch an Valtteri. Er hat sehr hart gearbeitet und sich sehr gut ins Team integriert. Heute war er einfach schneller als ich und hat die bessere Leistung abgeliefert. Hut ab vor seiner ersten Pole. Meine Runde fühlte sich großartig an, aber es war sehr eng. Ich verlor etwas Zeit im ersten Sektor. Das war ungewöhnlich, da ich in diesem Sektor normalerweise sehr stark bin. Es war ein großartiges Duell. So eng sollte das Qualifying immer sein. Das zwingt uns dazu, am absoluten Limit zu fahren. Ich bin mit meiner Leistung zufrieden und es ist super für das Team, beide Autos in der ersten Reihe zu haben. Heute hatten wir einen kleinen Vorsprung vor den Ferrari, aber sie scheinen im Allgemeinen im Renntrimm etwas schneller zu sein. Deshalb erwarten wir, dass sie morgen näher dran sein werden. Es wird ganz sicher eng. Es ist schwierig, auf die Reifen zu achten. Deshalb wird es interessant, zu beobachten, ob es ein Ein- oder ein Zwei-Stopprennen wird. Hoffentlich erleben wir morgen ein großartiges Duell.

Overall, it has been a good day. Yesterday I couldn’t get the right feeling, I kept sliding too much. We made some minor tweaks on the set-up and the car felt better today, I was quite happy with the balance. But in qualifying, after seeing what the gap was at the end of my first run in Q3, I wasn’t so happy, so I tried it all and maybe pushed a bit too much. This is a circuit where you can easily overshoot it. Today, we were losing a bit everywhere around the lap, perhaps more than usual down the straights. But tomorrow it should be closer, and hopefully we’ll have a tight race. The car feels good for Sunday.

“It’s been a good and positive day today. We didn’t expect much to change from China to here but now we’re a lot closer to pole than we were a week ago so we’ll take that. To be on the second row and to get ahead of a Ferrari is a good surprise. We kind of thought if we put everything together then there might be a chance of a second row and we got it. We’re learning and are getting a bit more out of the car as well which is great to see. If tomorrow Mercedes and Ferrari run into some tyre degradation maybe we can have a bit of a go. But the aim now is to try and maintain this gap in the race and stay within half a second or second each lap and to replicate our pace during qualifying in the long runs.”

The car was good overall, I thought there was a lot of potential, but for many little reasons we never really got the time out of it. The final result is far from what we wanted, but that’s how it ended up today. I have been struggling to find the right set up: all in all it has been better here than it’s been the last few races, but in qualifying, when we start to push, it is not what we wanted yet. Tomorrow is another day, the grid position is not ideal and the race is going to be quite tricky. So let’s try to make a good start , make the right decisions and take the best out of it.

“In general the whole qualifying was very positive and we improved with every session up until the last run where I just got hurt in the preparation. Felipe (Massa) squeezed in front and I had to stay in first gear to keep a gap to him so the tyres cooled down which hurt my first sector. If you lose straight away two tenths then it’s not ideal and you try to catch up but it’s very hard if the tyres are not in the window. The pace was there today but just not on the last run when it counted, but sometimes that happens if you have some traffic. We have made many small improvements and tried to optimise everything which seemed to work and we understand the car more and more with every run that we do. We are definitely closer, I think Mercedes is still too fast for us but the Ferrari doesn’t look too far ahead. Our car seems to work much better on this track so hopefully we will get a clean start with no incidents and then see what we can do in the race. It was definitely possible to be a bit further forward but last time I started a bit further behind and ended on the podium so anything is possible.”

“That was one of my best qualifying laps together with my pole in Brazil 2010. It’s quite a tricky track to get a perfect lap here, but I think I extracted the maximum possible today. The team has done a great job all through the weekend so I’m very proud and happy right now. Looking to the race, I’m a bit cautious with predictions as we had a great qualifying last time out, then the circumstances of the race undid our good work. We just need to get some good Easter egg points tomorrow.”

I’m happy with our qualifying session and the job that we did. Maybe the perfect position would have been seventh as we lost a little bit of time at the end there. But, I’m really looking forward to the race tomorrow. I’m happy with the performance of the car across the whole weekend, not only on new tyres but also the old tyres. Tomorrow is another day and we need to concentrate on getting everything right and try to get a better position tomorrow.

“It’s been great to turn around the day as we did. We really struggled in FP3. I couldn’t feel the car. The guys did a great job setting it up for qualifying and the car felt much better from the first run in Q1. That was good and I’m very happy where we are. We’re in a great place to start the race. Last year we started P9 and finished fifth, so anything is possible. It’s going to be a long race. Tyre degradation is going to be a big thing here. I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes tomorrow and seeing what we can do from ninth.”

“It’s my best ever qualifying; Q3 for the first time, and I’ve seen a full hour of qualifying, which is nice. I’m happy, especially as we had a tough weekend up until now, trying to extract the performance from the car. I got my head down with my engineers and we made some changes before qualifying making the car much better. I didn’t put in a fantastic Q3 lap so it could have gone better, but we do stand a good chance to score points tomorrow.”

"It was another very tight qualifying session and we came very close to getting into Q3 – unfortunately I made a mistake and went off at the last corner during my fastest Q2 lap. I'm really sorry for all the guys, they would have deserved to be in the top 10. Nevertheless, the car is capable of being up there consistently, which is very pleasing. We managed to do quite a good step forward from yesterday to today and I was feeling good in the car. With a clean lap, we would've made it into Q3; we have a fast car. Tomorrow we get to start from P11, which is good from a strategic point of view as we can choose what tyres to start the race on – we should be able to fight for some points from there tomorrow."

Looking at the times it’s really close, so I’m happy. I wouldn’t say we have been struggling, but it has been difficult for us this weekend just getting the tyres in the window for a qualifying lap and suffering with low grip here. It was not easy in qualifying on that first run, but once I knew where the grip was and how the car was I was able to deliver it on that second lap, but unfortunately that only gave us one set for Q2. However, I think it was a good effort with the one set we had. P12 is not too bad. It’s obviously not what we needed to get into Q3, but I am pleased with the day and looking forward to tomorrow.

„Ich bin sehr zufrieden mit dem 13. Startplatz. Ich konnte mich Runde für Runde im Qualifying verbessern, demnach können wir mit diesem Resultat durchaus zufrieden sein. Beim morgigen Rennen bin ich gespannt, was mich erwartet. Natürlich werde ich wie immer mein Bestes geben, aber ich möchte auch so viel wie möglich dazulernen, auch weil es mein erstes Rennen für das Sauber F1 Team ist. Ich möchte dem Sauber F1 Team und Mercedes nochmals für die Unterstützung danken, die ich während meiner Verletzungspause bekommen habe.“

“It was a pretty normal session, apart from the DRS problem in Q1, but I’m not happy with P14 because we want to be higher up the grid. We did everything right, but we didn’t have the performance to make Q3 today. We’ve seen that the working range of the tyres is very small and it’s not easy to understand them and get the performance you need. I think that was our main issue today – we just didn’t find the window. Managing tyre degradation tomorrow will also be very important. I believe points are possible and there will be opportunities in the race. It’s a circuit where you can overtake so I need to make a good start and keep pushing.”

“Unfortunately, my lap in Q2 was good. I think until the last corner it was half a second better than my Q1 time, then I went on the throttle and there was an issue in the power unit. That hurt, because we had a chance of being a couple of places up, and tomorrow we’ll have to fit a new power unit, which won’t have the perfect settings or calibration. The first lap the engine gets will be the formation lap, so it won’t get any warm-up, we won’t get any laps to tune it, and we’ll probably therefore have an even tougher race than we’d expected. “The guys in the garage work day and night to prepare the car, there are parts we keep changing, we keep testing the updates, there’s hard work behind every weekend, but we don’t have a competitive power unit to fight at the front. “It’s not the ideal situation, but there’s nothing we can do just now, so we’ll see tomorrow what we can do.”

"How frustrating and annoying! We lost a great chance today of getting into Q3 – I'd say the top 8 was possible. I'm disappointed, as I was doing a great Quali. We had got up to speed very quickly after yesterday's problems and I was coming very fast, but another reliability issue puts us only P16 on the grid. The only positive is that the race is tomorrow and we can still fight for something. I think the car has a lot of potential here and it feels faster than ever since Australia, so it's a real shame that I had to stop the car in Q1. Anyway, once I cool down I will get over this, stop being upset about the situation and already start thinking about the race – I will push hard even if I will go a bit into the unknown after missing so much track time; there will be a lot of improvisation, but we've done that before and we've come along pretty well, so I'm positive that tomorrow can end up being a good day."

“Everything was more or less OK with my laps. I struggled a little bit with the brakes on the second run and had a couple of lock-ups, so I was lacking a little bit of confidence. But I think the lap was more or less the maximum possible – I don’t think there was much more left in the car. Our results are more or less the same as they have been during the past couple of races, so I don’t think we expected anything different here this weekend. We know once we get to qualifying that the others can turn up their engines and have a little bit more pace in their pockets, so we just have to drive the perfect lap and see where we end up “Not having much running in FP2 cost us a bit, and meant it was difficult for me to get an idea of the grip available on track and what the Supersoft tyres were going to feel like, but in the end it’s more or less as expected. We’ll try our best tomorrow as usual; we know our race pace is difficult, especially with the straight-line speed we have, but we’ll see what we can do. The lap times in the evening are quite a bit quicker than in the daytime, but the track surface is still very hot, so it’s still difficult to manage the tyres. Tomorrow that will come into play. “We’re not setting ourselves any targets for tomorrow. We just need to stay out of trouble, do a good job, and hopefully we’ll have a good result – we’ll wait and see. The race will be tricky and there are difficult conditions out there, a tough race for everyone and a long race, but hopefully we can benefit from that and make a difference.”

“I was really unlucky today with the waved yellow flags. I had to abort my final lap in Q1 and that was the end of my qualifying. It’s a shame because I had the speed to be much higher up, but sometimes things just don’t work out. I still feel positive for the race because we made some good progress between final practice and qualifying. I felt much happier in the car, but we could not show it with the final result. Tomorrow we will do all we can to move forward. It’s going to be a tough race, but with good strategy I think we can be more competitive.”

„Das war ein enttäuschendes Qualifying für mich. Ich konnte nicht das Maximum aus dem Auto herausholen, aber auch das gehört zum Motorsport dazu. Nichtsdestotrotz kam ich heute mit dem Auto besser zurecht, als in den beiden Freitagstrainings. Die Rundenzeiten mit viel Benzin an Bord sehen nicht schlecht aus, deshalb hoffe ich, im Rennen eine bessere Leistung zeigen zu können.“

“It’s bad luck. These things happen, but it’s always annoying. That’s how it is sometimes, but we’ve just got to get up tomorrow and have a good race. Obviously in China, race conditions were a bit easier to fight back, but we’ll still give it a go tomorrow. We’ll see if we can get through. Anything can happen, we know that. There’s no reason to give up. We’ll just do what we can.”