Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

“That was a good day for us and I’m really pleased for the team. The last couple of months haven’t been easy for us so it’s nice to get a result like today and it sends the right message to all the guys. We are flat out and the most important thing is we keep pushing. There’s a lot of adrenaline going around in qualifying and when they came on the radio I was really delighted. It was quite tense in terms of concentration and obviously you try to put everything in that one lap or in those two attempts that you have. Coming here, we knew that we would have better chances and we were able to confirm that. Our pace is stronger here and we are basically sure to avoid the soft tyre in the race. We’ll take it from there. Anything can happen tomorrow and we’ll race to find out, as simple as that. We know our competitors are very quick, especially over the distance and we’ve seen this in all the races so far, but we’re starting ahead of them and hopefully we’ll stay there and fight as hard as we can. It is important that the chance was there today and we took it. But now we must confirm it tomorrow. So hopefully more singing!”

Wir haben heute alles gegeben und deshalb bin ich nicht enttäuscht. Das Timing war richtig, unsere Abläufe waren gut und ich habe mein Bestes gegeben. Alles in allem bin ich mit unserer Arbeit zufrieden und wir befinden uns in einer guten Ausgangslage für das Rennen. Für einen kurzen Augenblick hatten wir den ersten Platz, aber Ferrari war einfach schneller, besonders im letzten Sektor. Sie waren auf der Geraden vier oder fünf Zehntel schneller als wir. Aber wir wussten schon vorher, dass sie schnell sein würden und das ist auch gut so, so sollte es im Rennsport sein. Ich bin froh, dass ich mich zwischen den beiden Ferrari-Fahrern platzieren konnte. Morgen sollte es ein interessantes Rennen werden, in dem wir hoffentlich eine gute Show zeigen können.

“Today’s result is great for our team and congratulations to Seb for securing pole position. He was very quick today and just put everything together. He deserves it. For my part, I have to improve the way in which I anticipate the track evolution, so that I can set up the car to be on point for Q3. I will analyse this and hopefully be stronger in this department at the next race. Starting from third place tomorrow is a great opportunity and it will be fun to be in the fight with our competitors. We will keep pushing and do our best to bring home a strong result.”

“I never thought I’d be so happy for a fourth place in qualifying; it feels like a pole position! It was so cool when they told me over the radio I was fourth. I’m really happy for the team today. This track is fun, I’ve always enjoyed it here. We seemed quick from the start of the day. Even yesterday we were fast, but we made further improvements and managed to put it all together for qualifying. We’ll see about tomorrow, the start could be interesting. For now, we’ll enjoy this moment as a fourth in qualifying is huge for us.”

“I think qualifying was pretty good. I didn’t have any tow and tried to squeeze everything I had out of the lap. I was pretty close to third place, but I think P5 is a good starting position for tomorrow and I think we can be happy with that. It was all pretty close today, we just missed a little bit. Tomorrow we know we have to start with the softs and that’s going to be a bit tricky, especially as apparently the weather will be even hotter than today but I think we will make the race pretty exciting to watch. I hope we can keep the pace and we will push as much as we can to challenge the top three.”

Ich habe auf meinem ersten Versuch im Q3 einen Fehler gemacht. Das Heck kam und ich drehte mich in Kurve zwei. Dabei hatte ich Glück, dass ich die Mauer nicht berührt habe, aber dadurch befand ich mich für den zweiten Run im Hintertreffen. Meine zweite Runde war nicht rund – ich habe mich einige Male verbremst und bin nicht gut durch die Kurven gefahren. Auf diese Runde bin ich nicht besonders stolz, aber Fehler passieren eben manchmal. Daraus muss ich meine Lehren ziehen, weitermachen und morgen gestärkt daraus hervorgehen. Das Auto fühlte sich gut an und unsere Pace auf den Long Runs sah am Freitag ebenfalls stark aus. Entsprechend bin ich zuversichtlich, dass sich im Rennen Chancen ergeben werden. Auf dieser Strecke ist Überholen möglich und wir haben hier in der Vergangenheit schon großartige Rennen erlebt. Deshalb werde ich alles geben und versuchen, so viele Punkte wie möglich einzufahren.

“I can’t be too unhappy about that as my lap wasn’t bad, but I maybe left a tenth on the table. It’s my best qualifying of the season and we’re in a good position for tomorrow. Daniel pulled out a great lap and the overall team result today is excellent. The team has worked really hard – especially on the power unit - which has made a big step from last year. We, quite clearly, confirmed that progress today. Our race pace has looked good recently, so hopefully a strong result is on the cards tomorrow.”

“It was a perfect turnaround compared to yesterday and a good quali result in the end. Today was an improvement but it could’ve been even better - I didn’t do a great lap at the end of Q3. But P8 is a nice result and it gives me a good starting position for tomorrow. “It’s a fun but tricky track and I gained in confidence with every lap. I was a long way off Carlos yesterday so I’m much happier today. I needed to turn things around and I was back on the pace in FP3. The Renaults were fast in quali so I couldn’t do a lot more.”

“It was just unlucky today and these things happen in Formula 1. We tried to get through to Q3 on the medium but the tyre didn’t feel fantastic for us and with the traffic at the hairpin it didn’t really work out. We then went out on the soft, I was on a decent lap to make it through to Q3 but then the red flag came out and I couldn’t finish the lap. Starting tenth will be tricky as I have to clear the midfield before closing the gap to the leaders. That’s how it goes sometimes and you can never predict someone being in the wall. It’s not where we want to start as I want to be fighting the leader, but we should be able to recover our positions and still have a good race.”

“It was a solid Saturday for us and I was happy with my laps, so I don’t feel too bad with the result. We improved the car from yesterday and it would have been nice to start from inside the top 10, but we were missing a couple of tenths today to be comfortably in there. When we tried to find that extra bit of pace it felt like there was something missing, so I think Q3 was going to be quite tight. It’s not a bad result though as the race is very long, so we’ll keep our options open and do our best to move forward tomorrow.”

“Overall, we can be satisfied with having both cars in Q3, which was one of the targets of the weekend. However, I made a mistake on my last run in Q3 and didn’t put together the lap we deserved today, which is a shame and I’m sorry for the team. I wanted to put the car as high as possible but these things can happen when pushing the limits of the track. “Tomorrow we’re not starting where we wanted because of a penalty which is disappointing, but I’m confident we have a good chance of moving forwards and getting some points. Our pace was encouraging so I look forward to tomorrow. I like this track and we’ll be ready to grab any opportunity out there.”

“It was a positive qualifying session. P13 is not a bad position to start and we are close to a place in the top ten. This is a new track for me and every lap gives me more confidence; I was improving my final lap in Q2 when the red flag stopped us. We’re in a good position but tomorrow’s race will be long and difficult. It’s a track where you can overtake, so strategy will be very important. We need to keep working hard to improve and come home with some points. We have free choice of tyres so now it’s up to us to put everything together and have a good result.”

“I’d say it would have been very tight to get into Q3 today. Going by our pace on Friday, we wouldn’t have expected to be where we are today, but we made some good steps overnight to get back in the fight. We got stuck on the weighbridge and we had to quickly bolt the tyres on and go out on my second run, so it was a bit of a shame because we didn’t get to start the lap the way we wanted to. It’s a bit frustrating because my lap wasn’t very clean but it’s a cool track and tomorrow’s another day, so we’ll see how we do in the race.”

“It wasn’t the best of luck again. It’s not been an easy day. We had a broken rear wing in FP3, which meant we headed into qualifying having not run the soft tires today. Q1 went okay, then in Q2 I played for the full aggressive strategy – going for one-timed laps. On my first attempt I locked up at turn six, so I couldn’t finish the lap. My second attempt was obviously then red flagged. Maybe we should have played it a bit more conservatively, or I should have asked for it, but I was happy to go for one-time, one-time in the session. So, that’s a bit of a shame. I don’t know if we’d have made it into Q3, but maybe just outside the top ten. It would have been a nice position for tomorrow.”

“The pace was there to go through to Q2 and beyond. That's the worst feeling you can have as a driver, when you know you could have done much better. I had a lockup into turn ten and lost time there. The preparation lap was also difficult, with a lot of cars going into the final corner so close together, which wasn't ideal. The gaps are very small and we thought we had more of a margin than we did. It was about getting a good lap and I didn't perform 100%. Just a couple of hundredths made the difference in the end, so to find ourselves out in Q1 because I didn't maximise the car's performance hurts a lot – especially knowing how much hard work the whole team have done to improve the car recently. We'll see what we are able to do tomorrow. It's going to be a hot race, which will make it difficult with the management of the brakes because they suffer a lot here. We won’t give up; there’s still a long way to go and I want to come away from Montreal with some points.”

“We tried twice but we were just not fast enough over the two laps in Q1, it’s as simple as that. Yes, the track was slippery but that’s not an excuse as it is the same for everyone. And yes, the performance in FP3 was better but unfortunately FP3 is FP3 and qualifying is qualifying.”

“It’s wasn’t an easy day with the engine change having a big impact on the final result. I missed out on doing any laps in final practice and we had to go back to the old spec engine, which is several tenths down on performance. The guys and girls in the garage did a great job to fit the new power unit in time for qualifying, but I just felt on the back foot going into the session. Without these problems, I’m sure I could have gone further in qualifying. I still feel positive about tomorrow: it’s my home race and I’m going to give it my best shot. I remember in 2017 I came back from a difficult qualifying to score my first F1 points in Montreal. I need to pull something similar out of my pocket tomorrow.”

It was a positive qualifying. We maximised the package which is all we can do. I have a good feeling about the track, it has a nice flow to it and I enjoy driving here. We made a lot of set-up changes over night and it was a big improvement for the feeling of the car. We knew this track would be one of the most challenging for us, but we got the most out of it so everyone in the team should be proud.

I struggled with the grip and the feeling in the car. I was fighting too much with the car and struggled to focus on performance. Yesterday the overall feeling was slightly better but certainly I found it difficult to gain grip which is very strange.

“I just hit the wall – broke the rear suspension, then it shot me over to the pit wall in a big crash. We were fast, we made it to Q3, and I was improving. I was just trying to push everything, as I knew it was going to be tight. I went on the power a little too early, and everything followed from there. I’m very sorry for the team. They have a big job to do now. We’ll probably start from the pit lane tomorrow, but they deserve better.”