Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

“Of course, it felt amazing when I came out of the car and heard our tifosi cheering from the grandstands. On the other hand, it is a shame for Seb who had the potential to do first or second, and I think that as a team we deserved that today. It was quite a messy qualifying session, especially in Q3. In the last few minutes, we found ourselves in an odd situation at the exit of the second corner where two cars were blocking our way. Seb overtook me there, because I think that he was aware that we were tight on timing. After this, I tried to find the best tow and then overtook Seb before the last corner to give him the tow back, but unfortunately, it was too late to achieve what we had planned. Looking at the race, our pace looked quite strong in FP2 and the gap to our competitors is smaller than it was in Spa-Francorchamps. DRS and tow are very important here in Monza, so the target will be to create a gap in the first three laps that is big enough not to see them again!”

Wir stehen nicht auf der Pole, aber es war immer klar, dass Ferrari hier stark sein würde und Charles hat heute eine großartige Leistung gezeigt. Es war Pech, dass sich Kimi direkt vor mir gedreht hat. Dadurch musste ich in der letzten Kurve auf meiner letzten Runde vom Gas gehen. Der Abschluss von Q3 war eine Art Antiklimax. Wir konnten nicht mehr alle unsere letzte Runde fahren, was normalerweise einer der aufregendsten Momente des gesamten Rennwochenendes ist. Es steckte noch mehr Zeit im Auto, deshalb ist es enttäuschend, dass wir das auf der letzten Runde nicht einsetzen konnten, um zu sehen, wer heute knapp die Nase vorne gehabt hätte. Es ist aber klasse, dass ich in der ersten Reihe stehe und wir uns beide zwischen die Ferrari-Fahrer schieben konnten. Gemeinsam haben wir eine gute Chance, um uns den Ferrari vor uns zu schnappen. Aber warten wir den morgigen Tag ab.

Ich hatte heute das Pech, dass ich auf meiner ersten Runde in der letzten Kurve gelbe Flaggen gesehen habe. Kimi ist dort abgeflogen, weswegen ich vom Gas gehen musste. Aber selbst mit der Runde war ich sehr nah an Charles und Lewis dran. Es hätte für mich also noch besser ausgehen können. Der letzte Versuch ist für alle schiefgegangen. Am Ende von Q3 ist uns schlicht und ergreifend die Zeit ausgegangen. Ich steckte im Verkehr und dann war es zu spät, um rechtzeitig für eine zweite schnelle Runde über die Linie zu kommen. Das ist sehr schade, denn wir wären alle gerne noch eine Runde gefahren und ich bin mir sicher, dass hätte jeder auch gerne gesehen. Hoffentlich können wir daraus eine Lehre ziehen. Alles in allem war die Pace gut und ich bin mit meiner Performance zufrieden. Ich bin glücklich, direkt hinter der ersten Reihe zu stehen. Wir wissen alle, dass es erst morgen zählt und aus den Top-3 hat man hier immer gute Chancen. Unsere Rennpace schien gestern gut zu sein. Hoffen wir also, dass wir Ferrari morgen angreifen können.

“I was happy with the car which was really good, and I was also pleased with my lap today, but I cannot be happy with how qualifying went. At the end of Q3, most of us didn’t make it through to the second attempt. The lap I did on my own without a tow was good. I think we went out late and then obviously you look for a tow, but it’s clear we waited too long, so in the end there was no margin. At the end I just had no choice but to miss my last lap because the light was already red, so I’m obviously disappointed. But from fourth on the grid there are still plenty of chances to do well. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow.”

“It was a great qualifying for the team, locking out the third row. We executed everything well today, and the result is a good reward for that. I had a good Q3 lap, and we’ve been a solid top six all weekend. Just like in Spa, we’ve been strong since the summer break and that’s pleasing. No one wanted to be first on the road at the end, everyone was side by side. It was a consequence of no one wanting to give their tow to everyone else. Still, fifth on the grid is really solid.”

“I’m happy with the result, but it could have been a little better. It was okay, I lost some rhythm in Q2 with a lock-up at Turn 1, so I had to reset myself. The ending was clearly a bit extreme but the tow has a big impact here and it’s worth a couple of tenths, which you can’t make up in the corners. That’s why we had some games at the end. It was peculiar with all the cars bunched up. Our pace was clearly very strong today and we have to back it up with points on Sunday.”

“It was quite an eventful qualifying for everyone. A weird last run we aren’t used to seeing. Anyway, I think I managed to extract the maximum from the car and, as a team, we executed a very solid quali, so we should be happy with our overall performance today. “P7 is a good starting position for tomorrow and it gives us a good fighting chance for the race and for points. The weather might play a big role, so we’ll be ready for different scenarios.”

“Although I’m still learning what the car needs to be really quick, it felt good before the final run in Q3. I was fighting for P4 or P5 on the grid but then we got the red flag and the lap was compromised. On the second lap it was more of a priority for us to put in a good time but the guys who had already done a lap could afford to be a bit slower. Everyone came out too late because no one wanted to be in front as we all wanted the slip steam and that created a delay. These cars have quite a lot of drag so getting a tow can gain you an extra two or three tenths which you need to get up the field. I was trying to pass the other cars but because everyone was weaving down the straights to keep the tyre temperature up as we were going so slow, it got backed up and it became impossible to overtake. I realised by Turn 4 that it was going to be difficult to make it. When we all knew time was running out everyone suddenly picked up their pace, so we were almost flat out by the end of the lap. We should have taken less risk on the second run, but we were fighting for a top five position. It’s frustrating as getting a good position in qualifying would have made tomorrow’s race a lot easier but I had good pace yesterday so there is everything to fight for.”

“I’m happy to be back in Q3 because it’s been a little while. However, it’s a shame we couldn’t set a time at the end there. I think everyone underestimated the time to get to the line, everyone got greedy looking for the tow and in the end nobody got it! Hats off to Sainz: he judged it just right. I have some good memories of coming here [to Monza] over the years. It’s awesome to be behind the wheel of an F1 car on a high-speed track like this because you really get to feel the car working at its best. I’m hoping for some mixed conditions to spice things up tomorrow and to score some good points for the team.”

„Es war ein wenig frustrierend, Q3 um lächerliche zwei Tausendstelsekunden zu verpassen. Im Bereich der zweiten Schikane verlor ich ein wenig Zeit, weil dort nach einem Ausrutscher eines anderen Autos Kies auf dem Asphalt lag. Das ist der Preis, den man zahlen muss, wenn es im Feld derart eng zugeht. Wir wollten mehr, haben aber unverändert Chancen, ein gutes Rennen zu fahren. Wir müssen es positiv sehen: Wir haben freie Reifenwahl, und ich denke, das kann ein Vorteil sein – vorausgesetzt, es regnet nicht. Wir liegen unmittelbar hinter der Top 10 – falls der Start gelingt und wir eine gute Strategie haben, können wir im Kampf um die Punkte mitmischen.“

“It was about as good as it could be today, but Q3 was only about a tenth away, and you always feel like you could have taken that. I got out behind Albon, who was much quicker than me, so he pulled away and I only got a tow for half a lap – because then he was gone. That’s how it is. We got more-or-less everything out of it that we could. We’ve seen before that the car drops in race pace, but we can just hope it doesn’t do that tomorrow. Friday looked a little bit positive, so we hope that’s going to carry into tomorrow and be the same again. We’re not far from the points. If we have a decent race car we can go for it.”

“Unfortunately, today wasn’t representative of our true pace. On the last lap in Q2 we caught quite a few cars and it became quite messy. I had a lot of traffic on my lap, where cars ahead were making mistakes and aborting their runs, and even coping with that, I still almost made it to Q3. It’s a shame because I think we had Q3 within reach and we just made our life more difficult. We tried something different but it didn’t work, so it’s a good lesson for the future. It’s not going to be easy but we will try as always to get into the points tomorrow. Our race pace didn’t look too bad yesterday and our package looks quite competitive here, so if we prepare well and have a race like we had in Spa we should hopefully be on for a good result, to make it up for today.”

“Very much disappointed not to make it through to Q2 today. The car was actually better than it had been in FP3 and in the corners I was fast. Just compared to Kevin (Magnussen) though we’re lacking a lot of top speed, I don’t know why, but it costs you a lot of lap time. My lap was good, I had a bit of traffic through turns four and five, I probably lost a bit of time there, but every other corner I was fast. It’s just very disappointing not to have gained more in a straight line, I was using the slipstream as much as I could. We need to look into everything.”

“It’s a big shame. We lost an opportunity today and we were not able to go through. I think it was something with the engine but I don’t know yet - I haven’t spoken with my engineers. I just lost power and had to stop the car. We’ll see what we’re able to do tomorrow. Hopefully we can minimise the damage and have a strong race to try and score points.”

My first lap was very good, but my second run was a bit of a shame. I came out of turn five and one of the cars ahead of me had gone off through the gravel and brought a load of it back on, so I had no grip at the next corner. However, it is positive that we were closer to the rest of the field than expected and I can be happy with qualifying, as I feel that we did quite a good job to maximise our package.

We knew it would not be an easy session for us, but that is how it is. The feeling up to qualifying in the car was not too bad, then in qualifying, the balance changed completely which was a bit disappointing to see. We have to see what the weather will do tomorrow and hope for the best.

“It’s been a reasonable day. I was already on the back foot from yesterday. Even in FP3, because I was still a bit more race-focussed, when it comes to the qualifying laps, the more situations you can be in to prepare for that, the better. “I feel what I did today was what I needed to do. I qualified ahead of Verstappen and ahead of Gasly, the two other drivers who have penalties. I also helped Carlos into Q3. Everything we could do, we did – so a good day.”

“It’s been a positive Saturday for us. As we have the penalty this weekend, we focussed on the long run this morning, trying to get a good read with the car on high fuel. However, we decided to give it a go in Qualifying to see what we had. I felt really good in the car and we were quite competitive, finishing ninth-quickest at the time. In Q2 we fitted the used tyres from Q1 to get some laps in, as we knew we would start from the back of the grid. The car has been pretty good all weekend and we’ve shown good pace so, even with the penalty, I think we will have our chances in tomorrow’s race and I’m excited to see what we can do.”

“Qualifying didn’t exactly go to plan. I wanted to go out and do one lap to see how competitive we were in Q1, even though we are starting at the back because of the penalty, but out of Turn 2 I felt a loss of power and we chose to abort the lap. I’m not worried about the power unit for tomorrow as we haven’t seen problems in the race before and the upgrade seems to be working well in terms of performance as you could see from our times in FP3. In the dry it will be pretty tough tomorrow as the leaders should be able to pull away quickly in the first few laps and there are a lot of cars that look competitive around here. On a track where there aren’t many corners and the lap times are so similar it is harder to close that gap, but in the wet the differences are normally a bit bigger and then we can definitely move to the front. Rain tomorrow would give us a better chance but even in the dry we have a good race car so it should be fun and I’m aiming for the top five.”

„Ich habe den Preis für meinen Fehler zahlen müssen, was ein wenig schade ist, da das Auto ziemlich gut fahrbar war. Die Schäden sind beträchtlich, also müssen wir abwarten, von welchem Startplatz aus ich morgen ins Rennen gehen werde. Aber vielleicht wird sich das Wetter hilfreich auswirken, denn unter wechselnden Witterungsbedingungen können wir immer noch ein gutes Ergebnis erzielen. Definitiv werde ich mein Bestes geben, um im Rennen Boden gutzumachen.“