Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

"Im Qualifying ging es sehr eng zu, wie es in Brasilien immer der Fall ist", sagte Valtteri. "Ich wusste vor meinem letzten Run im Q3, dass ich mich verbessern musste, wenn ich die Pole einfahren wollte. Ich fühlte und merkte, dass ich mich von Kurve zu Kurve steigerte." "Es ist ein sehr schönes Gefühl, am Ende alles zusammenzubekommen. Es war schade, dass Lewis im Q2 und Q3 nicht mitwirken konnte. So lag es an mir, die Kohlen für das Team aus dem Feuer zu holen. Ich bin froh, dass mir das gelungen ist." "Mein klares Ziel ist immer noch, Zweiter in der Fahrer-Weltmeisterschaft zu werden. Ein gutes Ziel zu haben, lässt alle im Team härter arbeiten und da schließe ich mich mit ein. Morgen wird es wichtig, ein gutes, sauberes Rennen zu fahren, aber es wird nicht einfach. Ferrari ist ebenfalls sehr schnell. Die ersten beiden Kurven sind in Interlagos immer etwas knifflig. Aber ich hoffe, dass ich einen guten Start erwische und es dadurch keine Schwierigkeiten gibt." "Es ist erst meine dritte Pole Position, also werde ich den Ausblick vom ersten Startplatz morgen sehr genießen."

“We have improved since Friday, and that’s the important thing” said Seb. “I was happy with my car today, but in my last run, I was perhaps a bit too shy in braking for the first corner. I had a better run at the end of my out-lap, so there was probably more grip than I expected there. In the last sector, I knew I could make up for some of the lost time, and I did, but it wasn’t enough. However, it was very close, and we’re usually even closer in race conditions, so my motivation is high for tomorrow and I’ll being aiming for a win”.

“The feeling with the car was good most of the time” commented Kimi, “but somehow the laps were always a bit tricky, with everybody trying to get their free space. When the tyres switched on well, then everything was easier, but with the traffic in the out-lap it was not always the case. Some sets were feeling better than others purely because of having a bit better out-lap. It was a bit hard to trust them and not get a front lock-up at the first corner. Overall the car itself was nice to drive when the tires worked, so it’s a bit of a shame. It was not the most straightforward qualifying but in the end it was a decent result. I think we did a solid job today, we can consider it a good team result. For sure there was more to get, but the race is tomorrow and it’s going to be long. For the start we’ll try our best, the first corner is quite tight, so we’ll try to make a good start and see what we can get”.

“I think we maximised the result in Qualifying today but we were just not fast enough. In general the pace has been simply not quite good enough across the whole weekend. I think both Daniel and I have been chasing the car balance and we could never find the full grip and potential. In Qualifying the grip was a little bit better; we lose a lot of time on the straights here but I think there are also one or two tenths we could have found. I never expected to beat Ferrari and Mercedes on this track as it’s just not strong for us, but I did expect to be a little closer. For sure I would love some rain in the race, but I don’t think it looks like that’s going to happen. Maybe I will do some praying tonight! We may need a bit of luck to be honest, but you never know what can happen up front and it can still be an exciting race.”

“I am very pleased with today’s result, especially given how difficult the last couple of weekends have been for me in qualifying. It was a good fight to get into Q3 because our rivals were pushing us really hard, but I managed a good lap in difficult conditions to be sixth – the maximum we could hope for today. I have to say ‘thank you’ to the team: we went through everything to understand how the latest upgrades on the car work because I seemed to struggle a bit in qualifying at the last few races. The engineers have worked so hard and today’s result proves our pace. I am pleased to be back on form and I am looking forward to the race. It was quite cold today and we expect a much warmer track in the race, so managing the tyres and being on the right strategy will be especially important. Perhaps there could be some rain too – you never know in Brazil, which could help us have a nice battle at the front.”

“I’m happy with P7 today, particularly because it was a difficult qualifying. Conditions were very tricky: you see drops of rain on the visor, and that takes some confidence away even when the asphalt is completely dry. So you have to trust what the car is doing, and commit to the corner even though your mind is saying something different. “Yesterday, we weren’t completely happy with the balance of the car and with the performance, but today the car stepped up and we were more competitive. “P6 is a fantastic starting position for scoring points, but we know that Hamilton and Ricciardo will come back very strongly tomorrow. I’ll try to defend as much as I can even though tomorrow we expect a very sunny day and completely dry conditions, so it’s not going to be easy to hold on to our position. “A little bit of rain is always welcome for us. We seem to be more competitive in damp conditions, but being in the top 10 tomorrow is our goal. Saturday has been great, let’s see what Sunday brings.”

“That was a good qualifying effort today and I think it was as good as it gets from the car here. We had some nice laps at the end of Q3 so I’m happy with that. Of course, I would have liked there to have been a little more rain to mix it up a bit, but that wasn’t to be. The name of the game tomorrow is to get to the chequered flag and to get points. We have reasonable race pace so it should be a good battle with Force India, McLaren and Williams; let’s see what happens.”

“It was a good day. I’m feeling more confident with the car and today was definitely a step forward from previous sessions. There’s still scope for improvement and adaptation, but to be in Q3 for the third time with my new team is a positive experience. Points are definitely the target tomorrow. It’s going to be an interesting race with Hamilton and Ricciardo fighting back, but we have the pace, so we just need to keep pushing.”

I was happy with qualifying until Q3 where I lost a lap because a driver disturbed me on purpose. That is really disappointing. I think if you make a mistake it’s ok but it wasn’t a mistake. I am really disappointed. It was raining a little bit on the last lap and I didn’t put it together. I was locking up and I’m not starting in the position that I should be.

“It was not a perfect session and I just missed out on making Q3. The margins are always tight here and a few hundredths would have made the difference. For whatever reason we didn’t make our usual step between Friday and Saturday, and that’s one of the reasons we were not as strong as we should have been. I was also struggling with putting all the sectors together over one lap because I was gaining time in sector one, but losing grip in sector two. It feels as though we just didn’t get the most from the tyres when it mattered in Q2. On the positive side, I will move up a place on the grid with Daniel’s grid penalty and I have a free choice of tyres for the race.”

“We tried really hard to go for it from Q2. It’s a good recovery from yesterday and from previous races. We’ve made some good steps this weekend and I’m happy with that. Last year here we had a good qualifying and this year’s is pretty decent for us. I guess the grid is going to be shuffled a little bit more with all the penalties. It’s a long race and track temperature will be over 50 degrees, so cars are going to be working in a different way. We’ll definitely see what we can do. Sixth in the constructors championship is still there and we’re eager to get it.”

“I’m not 100 per cent satisfied with today – it was a bit of a strange session for us. My qualifying started well and I had good rhythm straight away in Q1. I had decent pace and I was going quicker with each run. In Q2, I had some difficulties getting the tyres to work and I’m not sure why that is. With the final set of tyres on my last run we didn’t really manage to improve, and we need to delve into the data later to see if we can work out why. “It’s been very difficult to predict the weather this weekend. It’s always a bit better for us when the weather is mixed-up, so we’ll have to wait and see what the conditions are like tomorrow. We’re starting 12th so let’s see what’s possible. “If I reflect back on Friday, our long-run performance looked quite strong, so hopefully we can take those positives into the race. We know it’s always difficult for us to overtake, but from where we’re starting there’s always a chance for points. If we can get a good start and drive the perfect race maybe it will be possible.”

“I think Romain got the most out of the car today. He did a good job with the car we have this weekend. I did less of a good job in qualifying. When the car is like it is – unstable in the rear – Romain is just very strong. I struggle a bit more with that. I’m not too unhappy with the result today because the car hasn’t been to my driving style this weekend. We’ll see what happens in the race. The race pace didn’t look any worse than our qualifying pace, so with some luck tomorrow, we could be up for some more points. That’s what we’re aiming for.”

“A kind of a mysterious Saturday really. Normally, in past years, Fridays were never good for us and we then improved in Qualifying. Lately Fridays have been pretty comfortable but then on Saturday we often lose out. I think we were better on the soft tyre in Qualifying today but I’m sure something was up with the last set of supersofts I had in Q3 as I had vibrations as soon as I left the pits. That was a bit frustrating because I didn’t really feel I could work with too much out there. We start on the softs so hopefully that helps us tomorrow. I’ve got to try and charge through the field and I think we’ll have a good race car. Lewis is starting behind me so we’ll see; if Mercedes is as quick as they have been all weekend I might see if we can get a bumper on the front of Lewis’ car and he can push me up the field.”

„Ich bin mit dem heutigen Resultat zufrieden. Während den letzten Wochenenden hatte ich öfters Schwierigkeiten mit der Balance des Autos. Hier in Interlagos wurden nun ein paar Teile am Auto ausgetauscht. Ich fühle mich nun im Auto wieder wohler und komme mit dem Fahrverhalten besser zurecht. Das heutige Qualifying ist ein gutes Ergebnis. Wir hätten es fast in Q2 geschafft, was mich positiv für das Rennen stimmt. Zunächst wird morgen ein guter Start wichtig sein. Ich werde alles dafür geben, den Grand Prix in einer guten Position zu beenden.“

It was a tricky day missing out on FP3 and not doing any running until qualifying, so it was always going to be hard. We got helped by the red flag, but I was starting from zero today. It was just very hard. The car felt good, but I just made too many mistakes trying to find the limit of the car on the couple of laps I had. It has been a difficult weekend up to now, but tomorrow is a new day. We will have a penalty for changing the gearbox, but we will take it from there.

„Der heutige Tag war ganz in Ordnung. Unsere Rundenzeiten waren nicht weit vom hinteren Mittelfeld entfernt. Wir wussten, dass der Einzug in Q2 mit einer perfekten Runde möglich gewesen wäre. Wir waren nah dran, es hat aber nicht ganz gereicht. Dennoch könnten wir in der Startaufstellung noch ein paar Plätze gutmachen, weil andere Fahrer womöglich mit Strafen rechnen müssen. Morgen sind die Karten neu gemischt – im Rennen könnte es ganz ordentlich für uns aussehen.“

"Not a bad day, I'm pretty happy to have got through to Q2 today! We then didn't go out to set a time in Q2 in order to save all the tyres and keep all the options available for tomorrow's race, so we just used the session to do a couple of practice starts – something I needed considering my first two starts in F1, which haven't been the best... Hopefully this pays dividends tomorrow! It's going to be quite a tough ask to finish in the points, but we're definitely going to try, do our best and push for that – I'm really looking forward to the race!"

"I think today was pretty ok. Obviously it hasn't been a perfect weekend for us but at least we had some proper running in FP2 and FP3. We knew at the beginning of the weekend we would start at the back of the grid, so we tried to mainly focus on race simulations. This morning I was pretty happy with the long runs even if we knew it wasn't ideal for qualifying: in terms of downforce we put less than what we would have wanted to maximise our overtaking opportunities during the race. Hopefully it will pay off tomorrow. The track is so exciting! There's so much rhythm in the second and third sectors... it's really good to drive, but the most important thing is to be competitive tomorrow for the race, and hopefully have some good overtakes during the race."

"Ich weiß nicht genau, was passiert ist. Es ging alles ganz schnell, aber ich nehme es voll auf meine Kappe", sagte Lewis. "Natürlich ist es nicht das Ergebnis, das ich mir erhofft hatte, aber Herausforderungen machen das Leben interessant und sie zu bewältigen, gibt dem Leben einen Sinn." "Es ist schade, aber so ist es nun einmal. Ich werde einfach versuchen, das Negative zu nehmen, um aus dieser Erfahrung meine Lehren zu ziehen und nach vorne zu blicken." "Vor einigen Jahren startete ich hier von weit hinten und hatte ein großartiges Rennen. Deshalb werde ich versuchen, morgen so viel Spaß wie möglich zu haben."