Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Es ist ein fantastisches Gefühl, wenn man sein Potenzial ausschöpfen und so eine Runde wie ich heute hinknallen kann. Das gelingt mir nicht immer, aber heute war ich mit meiner Performance richtig zufrieden. Bis jetzt habe ich noch überhaupt nicht an das Rennen gedacht. Darauf werde ich mich heute Abend und morgen Vormittag konzentrieren. Im Vorjahr lieferte Ferrari hier am Sonntag bessere Arbeit ab. Aber wir lernen normalerweise immer aus unseren Fehlern und solchen Szenarien, deshalb hoffe ich, dass wir morgen besser vorbereitet sind. Letztlich kommt es auch darauf an, wie ich am Start mit den Reifen umgehe. Ich erinnere mich daran, wie Sebastian mir gegen Ende meines Stints im Heck hing und mich dazu zwang, an die Box zu gehen. Danach konnte er noch mehrere Runden weiterfahren, während ich hinter Verstappen festhing. Das werde ich ganz sicher im Hinterkopf behalten und mein Bestes geben, um sicherzustellen, dass ich mich morgen in einer besseren Position befinde. Ich weiß, wie hart Valtteri gearbeitet hat und wie schmerzhaft es für ihn sein muss. Aber er wird sich davon erholen. Er war während der Trainings sehr schnell und er hat viel Einsatz gezeigt, um sich als Fahrer und Teil unseres Teams zu verbessern. Ich habe volles Vertrauen in ihn, dass er sich morgen durchbeißen wird.

“Today” said Kimi “we did not really know what to expect from this first qualifying, it was a bit of an unknown. But then I was pretty happy with the car, the feeling was ok. The gap to our rivals is probably bigger than we wanted, but it was not a very straightforward day either. This is a very special circuit in many ways, if compared to “normal” tracks, and these are the early stages of the season. I think we have to wait for the next few races to have a clear picture and understand where the teams are exactly. For sure there are things to improve to go faster; I know there are areas where I could improve on my lap times. This is what we have got today, a decent result in quite tricky conditions. Tomorrow we’ll put our maximum effort into the race”.

“Yesterday it didn’t feel like everything was perfect, so today I am pretty happy that we could put both cars right at the front, very close to pole. I guess it’s a good shot. The gap to Lewis is significant of course, and we don’t want to be so far behind. But the car today was getting better and better: I could feel it was coming alive during qualifying; on my last run I made a small mistake at Turn 13, but it’s ok as second and third position are good for the race and, as we have seen in all the past years, we tend to be closer on Sunday than we are in qualifying”.

“Even with a small mistake I really enjoyed Qualifying today. It’s difficult to say what I expected heading into the session but it should have been a little bit better. I made a mistake on my last fast lap and went wide at turn 13 which lost me a few tenths compared to my previous run, we were still very close to Ferrari which is positive but maybe we could have been second. Mercedes were quite far ahead as expected, had I not made my mistake I think I would have only been about half a second off Lewis which is closer than in the past. All things considered and with the right strategy I think we can be competitive during the race tomorrow, with Mercedes I’m not sure but I think we can have a good fight with Ferrari. We are hoping to go a bit longer with our tyre selection so if we stay out of trouble at the start we can settle in and have a strong race. I am happy with the pace and feel for the first race weekend, so I’m hopeful we can improve and move forward from here, not just tomorrow but for the rest of the season.”

“The car was nice to drive in qualifying. It was just there, and performing. I was able to push brake points – get off the brakes earlier and earlier with every lap. It wasn’t doing anything unexpected, which was really nice. I’m looking forward to tomorrow starting in P5. We have some quick guys behind us, and we’ll have to do well to keep it that way. We’ll be doing all we can to get a good result. We need a solid start to the season and we need to capitalize on today’s qualifying result.”

“Everyone’s very happy and it reflects the hard work from everyone on the team. Our result confirmed a little bit what we saw in winter testing. I can push the car as much as I want, which obviously makes me very happy. It was a good job by Kevin (Magnussen) as well – getting both cars into the third row of the grid tomorrow. It’s going to be pretty amazing being there. Points could be possible. Obviously, we want to keep our positions. We’re starting in a good place, but we’ll see tomorrow what happens. This is a good start. We can be very proud, but we need to keep pushing.”

“Given that I wasn’t feeling especially happy with the car I’m pretty happy with my qualifying position today. The whole of qualifying was tricky for me and in particular my Q3 lap wasn’t as good as it could have been. We changed the car quite a bit after yesterday and the wet FP3 meant we didn’t have as much time as we’d like to validate these changes. It’s a close field out there so there will be plenty to do in the race.”

“The session itself didn’t go too badly, it started off pretty well and even in Q2 on the Supersofts we were looking good. I aborted the second run, but nonetheless we were looking alright. In the last part of Q3 we just missed a bit in the first sector, I’m not totally sure where the time is so we’ll have to look at that. Overall, the car didn’t feel too bad, we asked for a bit more front grip but we’d used all the front wing we had, so there was no more we could do in Q3. Obviously starting eighth because of the penalty is frustrating and I thought it was unjust. There are reprimands, fines and other things but to shoot me in the ankle before the season starts, well, I think they could have done better. We’re the only ones in the top 10 starting on the Supersoft so hopefully that helps us and ideally the leaders have trouble making the one stop work with the Ultrasoft and we capitalise there. It’s going to be pretty tricky to overtake so strategy will be key. The race pace looks pretty good and I’m looking forward to coming through the field. We’re obviously better than eighth so we will try and make it happen. To be honest, I feel sorry for the guys in front of me tomorrow as they’re the ones I’m going to have to take my anger out on.”

“We expected both cars to be in the top ten and we achieved this today, which confirms the good progress of the whole team. I had hoped to be a little bit higher than this, however the lap time didn’t come. I’ll take a good look at that today with my engineers. For tomorrow, I’m convinced we can move forward. It’s going to be tight but we have a good car and a good chance to battle with the cars around us. I’m confident we can put together a competitive race!”

“After winter testing, you never know how the performance in the first qualifying will be, so it’s some kind of relief that the car is performing well and we’re more competitive than the last few seasons. This year we’ll have fun. “There’s a lot of potential to unlock in our car, and we haven’t yet been able to do this due to some little issues. I think McLaren will be quite strong in the coming races, which is a very positive start. “Apart from Toro Rosso, we’re the only top team that has gone through an integration process of a new power unit with the chassis, the systems and the set-up, so there will be performance that will come for free once we’ve adapted more to the Renault power unit. “I think our race pace is probably better than our qualifying pace, so we’re in a good starting position – P11 or even P10 due to [Valtteri] Bottas’ problem – so definitely some good points are the target. Tomorrow will be probably one of the first races in the last couple of years where we won’t need to defend, and we will go for the attack mode. Also, the weather is still a factor for tomorrow, and if we have some showers it’ll be a great show. “I’m very positive and very optimistic about this season.”

“We’re a bit disappointed not to be in Q3 with both cars. It’s a shame as we showed some good promise yesterday in the dry during practice. From our side, there is some work to do – the other midfield teams are close and have improved a bit since yesterday, it seems – so we need to see where we lost out. “There was definitely potential there for us to make a good step forward today, and we’ve missed out on that. We have a good benchmark though and this is still very early in the partnership between McLaren and Renault, so there are still a lot of things that have to develop. We know that through the season we’ll improve a lot as a team and as a package, and I hope that we can show that very soon. “Tomorrow is race day and there are a lot of things that can happen. Overtaking is difficult here, and as it’s the first race of the season there’s usually a lot of drama. Compared to last year we’ve definitely made an improvement, and our race pace looks quite promising, so we need to be sharp and ready for anything. The weather might play into it a bit too, so if we can have a clean race and stay out of trouble, hopefully there are some points on the cards.”

“It’s disappointing not to be in Q3, but actually our performance was pretty good. We worked the tyres well and I drove a very strong lap, but I think the end result reflects where we are at this moment. We thought we had a chance to make Q3, but tomorrow is when it really matters. I think some things could play into our hands tomorrow because our race pace looks better than the pace we showed today. There’s an extra DRS zone creating more opportunities and it’s a race where we often see the safety car. There’s a long way to go so let’s see what we can do.”

We would have signed up for P14 coming into the weekend after Barcelona. It was not ideal, as we could have improved on the lap in our second run in Q2. However, I got held up a little bit in the last sector and I didn't have the tyres in the window, as the fronts were cold and that kind of cost me. I felt good in the car and there was probably a little bit more in it. We are kind of in the mix for the points, depending on what happens. We will see where we end up tomorrow.

“It was a tough session, especially Q2 where I was really struggling with the front of the car and locking tyres. It was also difficult to find space in the traffic. We had a big job this weekend trying to understand the new upgrade and missing out on some dry running in final practice didn’t help. The race pace will be better tomorrow and I think we can aim for the points. It’s one of those races where just making the finish gives you a chance to pick up a result. Tomorrow is another day and we will keep fighting and see what we can achieve.”

Ich denke, ich habe einfach etwas zu stark attackiert. Ich kam in Kurve eins weit nach draußen und dort war der Kerb noch etwas feucht. Dann verlor ich das Heck des Autos und berührte in Kurve zwei die äußere Mauer. Das ist sehr schade und es tut mir für das gesamte Team leid, da wir hier ein richtig konkurrenzfähiges Auto haben. Es sah so aus, als ob es ziemlich stark beschädigt ist. Hoffentlich können wir alles bis zum Rennen reparieren. Überholen ist auf dieser Strecke schwierig, aber wir werden unser Bestes geben. Vielleicht ist es in diesem Jahr durch die zusätzliche DRS-Zone ein wenig einfacher. Das wird sich morgen zeigen. Wir haben ein gutes Auto, also werde ich versuchen, so gut es geht zurückzuschlagen. Sobald wir das Auto ins Fenster gebracht haben, scheint es auch richtig schnell zu sein. Das ist die gute Nachricht des heutigen Tages.

"It was a little frustrating today, I think one tenth would have moved us up a few places and the car definitely had it in it. In the last lap there were a couple of small errors and it's frustrating to be so close to the cut off to Q2. I knew there would be huge track evolution through the run but we decided to go out first - a lot earlier than the other car - which could be considered a disadvantage but it gave us the option to maybe do two laps at the end. I think it was the right call, I just didn't quite get everything out of it to get to Q2. The good thing is the car was definitely quick enough to get to Q2 today. This morning was really encouraging in mixed conditions and equally on the long run yesterday, so I think our strength is our long run pace. Once this said, this track it's probably one of the hardest on the calendar to pass - it's a tall order! Tyre degradation will be a big story, so maybe managing tyres and a good strategy can bring us into the game. We're in that midfield battle, passing will be hard tomorrow and we'll do our best...we'll have to wait and see."

“Die Arbeit, die von gestern Nacht auf heute an der Rennstrecke sowie im Werk in Hinwil geleistet wurde, hat sich ausgezahlt. Das heutige Qualifying lief gut. Gestern hatten wir einen recht grossen Rückstand auf die Konkurrenz – wir haben seither gute Fortschritte erzielt. Wir sollten auf unsere Arbeit stolz sein, da es einen grossen Unterschied gemacht hat. Wir sind noch nicht dort, wo wir sein möchten, aber heute waren wir an Q2 nah dran. Wir haben viel Arbeit vor uns liegen. Im Allgemeinen freue ich mich über die Fortschritte und auf das morgige Rennen.”

“Mein erstes Qualifying in der Formel 1 – es war ein aufregender Tag für mich. Leider konnte ich mich während des verregneten dritten freien Trainings nicht ideal auf das Qualifying vorbereiten. Ich habe in Kurve 4 einen kleinen Fehler gemacht; wir haben es leider nicht ins Q2 geschafft. Das ist schade, aber trotzdem war es ein positives Erlebnis. Ich habe viel dazugelernt. Nun konzentriere ich mich darauf, Fortschritte zu machen. Mein erstes Fornel-1- Rennen steht kurz bevor und ich freue mich sehr darauf.”

There were big changes between the sessions. For sure I think we could have squeezed more out of the car, but it’s the beginning of a very long season so we should just analyse a bit more, analyse what we could do better and go onwards. We need to be positive. We try to learn step by step and move forwards.

"I'm really disappointed because it's not the first qualifying we wanted and I think there was potential to get into Q2. It was very close after the first run, but I just pushed too hard and locked up... and that was it, it was the only lap we had and by pushing hard I made a mistake. Up until Turn 3 I was two-tenths up on Brendon but this midfield is so tight that we need to get everything right. The degradation is quite high around here and at the moment we still don't know what the conditions will be like tomorrow, so we need to come back and I'll push hard to overtake. It's difficult to pass around this track so P20 is not ideal, but we'll do everything we can to gain positions. I think the car definitely has more potential so I'm ready for a fight tomorrow."