Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Ich bin überglücklich, das ist ein super Ergebnis. Wir wussten, dass es heute extrem eng zugehen würde und dass wir alles herausholen mussten. Q1 und Q2 verliefen relativ unkompliziert. Im Q3 stellten wir sicher, dass wir zur richtigen Zeit auf der Strecke waren, um ein gutes Fenster zu haben und nicht im Verkehr stecken zu bleiben. Meine erste Runde im Q3 war gut, aber es ging richtig eng zwischen uns allen zu. Ich glaube, dass ich weniger als ein Zehntel Vorsprung hatte und mir war klar, dass die anderen sich ebenfalls verbessern würden. Deshalb gab es keinen Spielraum für Fehler. In den letzten Qualifyings musste ich ein paar Mal im zweiten Versuch abbrechen. Aus diesem Grund ging ich sehr streng mit mir ins Gericht und sagte zu mir selbst: „Heute musst du die zweite Runde durchziehen.“ Und genau das ist mir gelungen. Das Team hat bislang an diesem Wochenende fantastische Arbeit abgeliefert. Unser Ansatz war sehr solide und wir lassen uns nicht davon abbringen. Wir wussten, dass es an diesem Wochenende eng werden würde und dass wir dafür genauso viel harte Arbeit, Einsatz und Gründlichkeit aufwenden mussten wie zuvor - und genauso werden wir weitermachen.

“Today not much happened; the conditions were quite tricky, but we tried to run as much as we could. We had one set that we could basically use without penalizing ourselves, because it’s the extra set that we must give back. The remaining ones can be used for qualifying and the race, so we were limited in availability. I did not pay much attention to lap times, because towards the end of the afternoon session, after I had set my best time on the Full wet tyres, the Intermediates we had at that time were quite worn. Through the sessions we made some progress, all in all it was OK, but it’s not easy to have a clear picture. We had some new solutions to test but given the conditions, there was not much to learn from them. Now we’ll try to make the best of it in the sessions that follow”

Bis zum zweiten Run im Q3 war es ein relativ unkompliziertes Qualifying. Alle anderen haben sich auf ihrem zweiten Versuch viel mehr verbessert, aber ich habe nicht mehr Grip gefunden. In diesen letzten Runden im Qualifying möchtest du die Reifendrücke und Temperaturen im optimalen Fenster haben. Der erste Versuch im Q3 fühlte sich etwas besser an. Jetzt müssen wir uns die Daten ansehen und herausfinden, ob es uns auch auf dem zweiten Run gelungen ist, die Reifen in das optimale Fenster zu bringen. Startplatz drei ist jedoch nicht schlecht und mein Fokus liegt nun darauf, Kimi zu überholen. Schließlich ist es unser Ziel, die bestmögliche Punktzahl für das Team einzufahren. Sowohl Lewis als auch ich gehen auf den superweichen Reifen ins Rennen, Kimi startet hingegen zwischen uns auf den UltraSofts. Der Start sollte also interessant werden. Ich glaube, dass alle Teams mit einer Reihe von Fragezeichen in den Sonntag gehen werden, da wir keine richtigen Long Runs fahren konnten. Deshalb stehen uns nur begrenzte Informationen über die Reifen zur Verfügung. Ich freue mich darauf, morgen herauszufinden, was geschehen wird.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had a second row start, so I guess I can kind of thank Seb or the stewards for that extra grid position. Being on the second row puts me in the mix at the start, Turn 1 is wide and I’m sure there will be a bit going on. I’m just happy to have my nose there and then we just need to make it happen. Ferrari and Mercedes were really strong today and their qualifying pace has been pretty superior all season, but in the race we seem to be able to bring that back. If I can get track position at the start then I can maybe disrupt their tempo and have a good crack at a podium. We look pretty racy in the third sector, in the first and second we’re going to bleed a little but I’m gonna try and make something happen. It’s also probably going to be a little hotter tomorrow, which might help work the tyres a bit harder but I think if it’s cool then there isn’t too much difference between the ultrasoft and supersoft. Every year I’ve come here with Red Bull we’ve been in a shot of getting a podium, so hopefully we’ve got a good shot tomorrow and I can promise you now, if I’ve got an opportunity of a podium tomorrow, I’m not going to let it slip.”

“There’s not much you can learn from a session like the one we had today and it’s been the same for everyone. We didn’t do many quality laps but it was clear that on the wet we were not quick enough. As for the three-place grid penalty, I think that the stewards today were very specific in saying that my slowing down time was 27.7 seconds; I saw the red flag, had a look around to see whether there was any car stuck in the wall between turn 9 and 10, and slowed down to comply with the rules. They found it was too long a time, but I can’t do much about that. The rules are clear and we know them, but I think a situation like this happened just this time, in these weather conditions, and on the wet you would go slower anyway.”

“I am really happy with our performance today. It’s awesome to be sixth on the grid – the best of the rest – but it was a really close session all the way through. In Q3, my lap was very strong and the car was working really well. Tomorrow the aim is to stay where we are and bring home the points. The race pace is a bit unknown because of the wet weather yesterday but I think we can be just as competitive tomorrow.”

“I’m pretty pleased with a smooth qualifying as we got the potential out of the car. To be honest it felt quite tough out there in terms of car balance as it’s very windy and you really feel that in the car. The balance changes quite drastically from one corner to another which makes it quite tricky - and it didn’t feel too pretty - but it was the same for all of us trying to produce clean laps. I pushed as hard as I could and I think we were quite successful today.”

“I was happy to be in Q3 again. It’s too bad Kevin couldn’t quite make it into the session. Maybe we’re not quite best of the rest this weekend, at least with the conditions we had today. Hopefully, we’ll have a bit more for the race tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to the race. We’ve got one car that can choose its tires for the race start, and then I’ll start on the ultrasofts. It should be about 15 degrees hotter in terms of track temperature. There’s a lot of difference for tomorrow. I think we’re pretty much in a good spot. I think we’ve got a good car. It’s exciting to know that we’re in the mix there with Force India sixth and Renault seventh. This midfield battle is pretty amazing.”

“Ich bin mit dem Tag zufrieden. Es ins Q3 zu schaffen ist immer toll, und ich bin davon überzeugt, dass wir heute das Maximum herausgeholt haben – besonders in Q2 und Q3. Unser Plan war alles auf eine einzige Runde im Q3 zu setzen und die Streckenevolution zu unserem Vorteil zu nutzen. Allerdings fing es an leicht zu regnen als ich auf die Strecke fuhr, welches uns wahrscheinlich etwas benachteiligt hat. Nichtsdestotrotz war es ein tolles Qualifying und ich freue mich auf das Rennen.”

“Qualifying tenth is a disappointing result because we had the potential to achieve much more. My first attempt in Q1 was pretty good, but when I returned to the garage we inexplicably discovered a lot of damage to the right hand side of my car, on the floor and bargeboards. We tried to fix it in the time we had, but we couldn’t repair it completely. From that moment on my car behaved differently and it hurt the balance. I struggled quite a bit in Q2 and Q3. The car definitely had potential, as Esteban demonstrated, so it’s a shame not to get more from today. Our aim tomorrow is to make up some ground. We have a car that can do it so let’s see what opportunities come our way.”

“Today was encouraging and it’s good news to see we are in the mix again. Unfortunately, I was two thousandths shy from Q3. I accidentally pressed a modifier button on the steering wheel and lost two tenths in the last corner. It’s frustrating because that means Q3 was actually within reach. Points are awarded tomorrow, however, so I remain positive. It’s usually a great race here as you can follow cars and you can overtake, so there’s potential for a very interesting day tomorrow.”

“I was struggling a lot in sector three, the low-speed corners. I just had a bit too much instability at the rear, which I struggle a little bit with. My lap was okay. P12 is not satisfying, but we can do some stuff tomorrow with strategy and, hopefully, we’ll get into the points. The midfield is so close. It’s only something like two tenths of a second from where I am to the top of that fight. I just missed that tenth or two to get me in front there. We missed that today, but who knows tomorrow. With strategy a bit more open for people outside of the top-10, maybe there’ll be an advantage there. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

“It was a good qualifying for us in terms of lap-time and the lap itself. Both laps were clean, with no traffic, no issues, the car felt good and was responding well, so we more or less maximised the package. That’s the maximum we could achieve today, as unfortunately we didn’t have the pace in dry conditions. We missed making it into Q2 by a couple of milliseconds as it was quite tight in the midfield, with one or two tenths to P11. “Hopefully tomorrow we’ll see a tight race and we’ll fight for the points at the end. Normally on Sunday our pace improves a little bit and if we manage to do a good start and a good strategy and there’s maybe some action in front of us, that’ll help to recover some places for free. “Having had a wet practice, we don’t know exactly about the tyre degradation and some other things, so we go into the race with some unknowns. However, maybe this will give us the possibility to do something differently and gain some places.”

We should be happy with what we have, especially with the amount of running we did earlier today. I think we optimised our performance quite well, I know we’re not through to Q2 and we have to aim for higher performance, but we squeezed the maximum from what we have available. I think we should be fair with ourselves and take it as it comes.

It was the usual to be honest and kind of what we expected. I just missed a little bit on the last sector of my lap. Maybe I could have got Alonso, but I definitely couldn’t have scraped through to Q2 as those couple of tenths are so hard to get. It was very tight. The plan for tomorrow is a good start and take any opportunities on the first lap. I think we also gain a couple of places with some other cars having penalties, and so that will be helpful. We will see what we can do and hope to have a good race tomorrow.

“Das Qualifying-Resultat ist enttäuschend, da ich mit meiner Runde eigentlich recht zufrieden war. Das Auto hat sich gut angefühlt und das Fahren ebenso. Wir werden nun alles tun um zu verstehen, was genau passiert ist und wie wir uns morgen verbessern können. Allgemein sind wir dieses Wochenende recht stark unterwegs, vor allem wenn man bedenkt, dass wir einiges an Zeit verloren haben, da die Wetterbedingungen gestern schwierig waren. Andererseits könnte dies das Rennen umso interessanter machen, da alle Teams relativ wenig Vorbereitungszeit hatten. Ich freue mich trotzdem auf morgen und bleibe optimistisch.”

“It wasn’t a great qualifying for us, and we didn’t have enough at the end of Q1. Today was the first dry day we’ve had this weekend. We were hoping for a little bit of rain, which looked like it was coming but it never seems to rain at the right time for us! “Tyre-wise, we’ve been struggling a bit with the Ultrasofts. We haven’t been too comfortable with how they’ve been behaving and can’t seem to make them work – we were quicker on the Supersofts. We only had one dry session and in FP3 we didn’t really feel that comfortable in the car on them, and that feeling carried forward into qualifying. The good thing is tomorrow we probably don’t have to race with that tyre. “We’ll try our best tomorrow – we’ve always been a bit better in the race. We were reasonable last year in race conditions and made a few overtakes, so we’ll see how that’s going to play out and if we can recover a few places. I’m looking forward to it and hopefully we can have a bit of fun.”

“Unfortunately in Q1 I touched one of the larger kerbs pretty hard which resulted in a suspension failure. It is pretty frustrating as plenty of other cars, including myself had been doing this all weekend. It was bad luck for the failure to happen when it did. It shouldn’t be an issue tomorrow in the race as you usually don’t push the track limits as much as in qualifying. The plan is to clear as many cars as quickly as possible and be able to fight at the front. The longer it takes to get through the pack the further ahead the front runners get, so a quick start is important. I really like driving here, and last year I had fun fighting my way up from 16th so I can be excited for tomorrow’s race.”

"Q1 was really positive today, I enjoyed that lap and it was good to finish in seventh position. As we will start from the back of the grid, there wasn't much reason to run in Q2, but the new engine specification is a great step and the car feels really good. All weekend I felt very comfortable in the car which behaved well in both the wet and dry conditions. We already know that tomorrow's race won't be easy, we have a lot of cars to overtake and a few good battles in front of us, but if the performance is still there I'll give a big push and I hope we can achieve the best result possible."

"It didn't really matter where we qualified today as we are starting tomorrow's race from the back. After this morning's running, we've set the car up for the race as much as we could and used Q2 as a session for doing practice starts. It will be an uphill race tomorrow, but we definitely have the pace to fight. Hopefully we'll be able to benefit from any opportunity that might come our way, we just have to be ready."