Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

“I’m very happy with pole here today and the car and engine were performing really strongly together. We made a few improvements overnight and even after FP3 we made some final touches to the car and it really came alive in qualifying. Straight away from Q1 the car was flying and even though Q3 was a little more tricky as the temperature increased the car still felt good. Going purple in the middle sector and to be on pole by over a tenth here is a strong performance for us and Honda. Normally we have a quick race car so hopefully that will be the same tomorrow and I really enjoy driving on this track. I’m expecting an exciting and hopefully an enjoyable race, so now we just have to finish it off tomorrow.”

“Max put in a strong lap and so we can be happy with a front row start. I think our performance matched our expectations and it is good that our lap time was reasonably close. It puts us in a good position for tomorrow. We improved the car, it felt better and it was coming alive in quali, I am reasonably optimistic that we are in good shape for the race, but we will have to wait and see. It is supposed to be a bit warmer and it will be important to look after the tyres and to make the right strategy calls. It will also be key to get a good start. The weather is unpredictable here in Interlagos, there could be sunshine but it might rain. 71 laps means it’s a long race and I think it will be fun.”

Das Qualifying war eine Herausforderung. Wir wussten schon vorher, dass es sehr eng zugehen würde, aber schlussendlich hatten wir nicht die nötige Pace für die Pole. Im dritten Freien Training waren wir stark, aber im Qualifying hatten sowohl Ferrari als auch Red Bull eine klasse Pace und wir haben auf den Geraden ein ganzes Stück auf sie verloren. Ich knabberte immer weiter am Rückstand und mehr als auf der letzten Runde war für uns leider nicht drin. Ich glaube nicht, dass noch mehr im Auto drinsteckte. Ich bin jedoch froh, dass ich in die Top-3 gekommen bin, dadurch habe ich eine viel bessere Ausgangsbasis, um den Sieg in Angriff zu nehmen. Unsere Pace auf den Long Runs sah am Freitag stark aus, das zählte schon das gesamte Jahr über zu unseren Stärken. Morgen sollen die Streckentemperaturen möglicherweise auf bis zu 50 Grad steigen, dann wird es für alle richtig schwer, denn solche Werte haben wir das ganze Wochenende über noch nicht gesehen. Ich habe das bei meinem Setup beachtet und hoffe, dass es sich morgen auszahlt.

Heute ging es sehr eng zu, wie eigentlich immer hier in Brasilien. Aber irgendwas hat uns heute gefehlt. Das dritte Training verlief schwierig für mich und ich war dadurch etwas im Hintertreffen. Im Verlauf des Qualifyings kam ich jedoch immer näher heran. Im Q3 hatte ich aber das Gefühl, dass ich nicht mehr aus dem Auto herausholen konnte. Meine Runden im Q3 fühlten sich eigentlich ganz gut an, vielleicht steckten noch ein paar Hundertstel im Auto, aber das reichte nicht, um heute in den Kampf um die Pole einzugreifen. Ich gehe trotzdem aus der zweiten Reihe ins Rennen und es wird interessant zu sehen, was von dort möglich ist. Wir haben ein gutes Auto für das Rennen, aber Red Bull hat auf den Long Runs ebenfalls sehr stark ausgesehen. Ich bin überzeugt, dass uns morgen ein aufregendes Rennen erwartet. Noch ist alles drin, also bleiben wir zuversichtlich und freuen uns auf einen schönen Kampf.

“All in all it wasn’t a bad comeback coming into qualifying but I’m still chasing for that final bit. Yes, it’s my first time here but I don’t like that excuse, and I don’t want to make excuses in general. I think it’s quite a tricky track, with long corners and low speeds. It’s very thermal sensitive so if you make a little mistake in one corner, you pay the price in the following four or five corners. Even in my second run I had a little snap into Turn 2 and then the tyres are too hot for the rest of the lap. They’re very fine margins here but it’s fun. There aren’t many tracks like this and I enjoy driving here, I just wanted to be a bit quicker today. Max did a great job and it was a good Saturday for the Team. Our race pace looks pretty good and with Charles’ penalty we start P5 so we have every reason to be in the mix tomorrow.”

“I’m really happy with how Qualifying went today! I’d like to pass on a massive thanks to the team for giving me a competitive car. It feels like pole position for us today as P7 in the midfield is the best we can expect. We knew it was going to be a tight Qualifying, so it feels great to get my fourth Q3 in a row. I felt good in the car all weekend, now we need to stay focussed for tomorrow and finish the job by scoring as many points as possible in the race.”

“It was a brilliant job by the team. Having both cars in Q3 is unbelievable. Tomorrow might be a different day, but that doesn’t matter, we’ll take the pleasure from today. We didn’t really get to show the speed we had in final practice. I had confidence that we might be around P11. Then obviously Q2 went really well, and Q3 wasn’t too bad. We were only two-hundredths of a second off being best-of-the-rest. I’m happy for the team, it’s a brilliant job from everyone.”

„Mit dem heutigen Ergebnis können wir zufrieden sein. Die Abstände im Mittelfeld sind sehr gering. Ein kleiner Unterschied kann viele Plätze ausmachen. Wir haben halt P9, und morgen werden wir sehen, was wir im Rennen erreichen können. Unverändert habe ich den Eindruck, dass wir weiteres Potenzial für Steigerungen haben – wir können viel mehr erreichen, aber es ist natürlich immer so, dass man noch mehr möchte. Es ist schwer vorherzusagen, wie sich das Rennen entwickeln wird, aber wir werden uns auf jeden Fall bemühen, einen guten Job zu machen, um am Sonntag ein gutes Resultat heimzufahren.“

“It’s good to have both cars in Q3 again. It looks like we might have something to fight with this weekend, which is really good. There’s nothing to be disappointed about from today. The circuit and conditions were right for our car. It’s been very up-and-down all the way through the year, so it’s not a surprise that we can do this. I’ll be more surprised if we can finish it off tomorrow, we know we struggle a little bit with tire management in the race. We’ll certainly be giving it our all though.”

“Not the best quali as I didn’t make it through to Q3, which obviously we’re always working towards. We’ve not been as strong here so far this weekend compared to recent races as the car doesn’t seem to suit this track. “Plus, the grid is super close. One-hundredth of a second and I would’ve been into Q3, which is a bit frustrating – but it shows small things count. We knew we would be tight and we just missed out.”

“It’s been really close in the midfield this week and today was no exception. It’s a short lap, not many corners, so everything has to go right. It wasn’t perfect from us today but I like these battles and the fact that it is so close. I struggled a bit on the last run in Q2, our tyres overheated a little bit, but that’s the way it is. We would have liked Q3, but it’s not a disaster and I’m excited for the race. We have a free choice of tyres and I think there will be some opportunities in front of us to progress up the order and take some points.”

„Ich wusste, dass ich eine Chance hatte, in die Top 10 zu kommen. Also machte ich während meiner letzten Runde in Q2 gewaltig Druck. Leider drehte ich mich und verpasste den Sprung letztlich um gerade einmal 0,06 Sekunden. Es ist, wie es ist – uns war klar, dass die Abstände auf einer derart kurzen Piste sehr klein sind. Aber wir haben immer noch eine gute Chance, morgen in die Punkte zu fahren. Gestern war ich mit unserem Renntempo sehr zufrieden, und für den Start haben wir freie Reifenwahl. Also können wir im Rennen hoffentlich einige Plätze gutmachen.“

“The midfield is super tight, and we just couldn’t extract enough pace today. It was nip and tuck and only a few hundredths would have seen us into Q3. It’s a short lap here and my second run in Q2 was clean, but we just lacked that extra bit of pace which would have seen us comfortably through. It makes our life tough for tomorrow, but I’m somewhat optimistic as our race pace has been better recently. Coming from the back of the midfield and sitting in dirty air is never easy, but we’ll fight and give it our all tomorrow.”

“It was not the best qualifying. The team gave me a great car and I believe that the potential was there for us to take pole today. I am disappointed about the mistake I made on the last corner of my first lap in Q3, because I lost about three tenths there. It doesn’t change too much though because I will be starting from the midfield tomorrow due to the grid penalty we have received. We completed some high fuel runs this morning to work on our race pace, as this is where we have the most room for improvement. We will do our best to apply what we learned there tomorrow. It’s good that we qualified on the medium tyres and I hope that we will be able to gain an advantage and pass some of the cars ahead. It won’t be an easy race and I will give the maximum to make up as many places as possible and hopefully fight for a podium.”

“It was very tight today and ultimately we didn’t have the pace we needed to make the top ten. The margins were very close – as they always are here – but I think we will have a better race car tomorrow and hotter conditions should play to our advantage. Although it’s disappointing to qualify in P15, I believe we can recover tomorrow and that we can aim for points.”

“It’s just a shame today. I was feeling really good in the car during FP3 this morning and I was positive going into Qualifying. Then in the afternoon, the car wasn’t in the right balance window anymore. On the second run I made a couple of mistakes which didn’t allow me to improve on my time, I’m not sure what happened, but I lost the rhythm and I couldn’t put everything together. However, my race pace is generally strong, and even if P16 isn’t ideal let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”

“It’s been a challenging weekend so far and I don’t think our car characteristics are best suited to this track. Obviously we didn’t get much running in yesterday [due to the wet weather] and today we are just at the wrong end of a very tight midfield. I think we should be stronger tomorrow and we expect the track temperatures to be much higher. Tyre management is going to be important tomorrow and that could give us an opportunity. We just need to look through all the information tonight, work hard on the strategy and see what we can do tomorrow.”

Qualifying was as we expected. The car felt pretty decent and it was good fun driving around this circuit. We are where we are, and we tried to make the most of it. It’s always tricky when the track is improving so much with every lap. I was pretty pleased with my effort, however, there was a bit more time on the table.

Today was a good day and the car felt fine, even after the disappointment of missing all of Friday. The track is challenging, nice to drive, although we did struggle with grip. We will try our best tomorrow, but, being realistic, it will be difficult. Spirits remain high with the boys, and with the team, so let’s hope for some chances in the race.

“Big disappointment today. An issue with the engine during my first attempt in Q1 meant I couldn’t even set a lap-time. We’ll investigate what happened, but I’m obviously disappointed because it cost us a good shot at Q3 today. “Another eventful Saturday this season where I’m not able to show our pace is frustrating, but these things happen and the race is tomorrow. It won’t be easy to reach the points starting from the back of the grid, but we’ll fight until the chequered flag and hopefully make a good recovery.”