Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Von diesem Gefühl bekomme ich garantiert niemals genug! Wir haben vor dem Qualifying ein paar Änderungen am Auto vorgenommen, nach denen es sich schlechter anfühlte. Damit hatte ich in den ersten beiden Sessions zu kämpfen. Auf dieser Strecke kann es zur gleichen Zeit in unterschiedlichen Streckenteilen Gegenwind, Rückenwind und Seitenwind geben. Das ist wie Jonglieren, während man auf einer Rüttelplatte steht. Im Qualifying kommt es stark darauf an, das nötige Vertrauen aufzubauen und nach meinem Dreher im Q2 musste ich ein paarmal tief durchatmen, mich beruhigen und neukonzentrieren. Das gilt umso mehr, weil ich wusste, dass Valtteri eine schnelle Runde nach der anderen hingelegt hat. Ich hatte einen guten Start ins Q3, die erste Runde war schön und sauber, aber die zweite war noch besser. Vielen Dank an alle im Team, die hier an der Strecke und in unseren Werken ganz in der Nähe von Silverstone hart und unermüdlich arbeiten. Sie treiben uns beständig an. Ich bin unheimlich stolz darauf, ein Teil davon sein zu dürfen. Im Rennen wird es morgen ohne Fans seltsam sein. Wir werden sie definitiv vermissen und es ist eine ganz andere Energie. Aber ich weiß, dass sie mir von Zuhause aus zuschauen und mich unterstützen werden. Deshalb hoffe ich, dass wir ihnen eine gute Show bieten können.

Der zweite Platz ist enttäuschend, aber Lewis hat im Q3 mehr Zeit gefunden und ich konnte nicht ganz mit ihm mithalten. Er hat heute sehr gute Arbeit abgeliefert und verdient die Pole geholt. Das Qualifying verlief relativ unkompliziert und ich bin im Q1 und Q2 saubere Runden gefahren. Das Auto fühlte sich gut an. Im Q3 fiel es mir schwerer, da ich Schwierigkeiten in den langsamen Kurven hatte. Das Heck driftete dort mehr als zuvor. Aber erst morgen zählt es und ich glaube, dass meine Performance auf den Long Runs an diesem Wochenende bislang gut gewesen ist. Ich bin überzeugt, dass es morgen Chancen geben wird und alles noch offen ist. Jetzt freue ich mich auf das Rennen.

“In general, I would say we had a good qualifying session and got everything out of the car that we could. My final lap in Q3 was good but you could see very early on that Mercedes were too fast, just like they have been for the past few races. I’m happy with P3 and it gives us a fighting chance for tomorrow, so I hope we can get a clean start and keep the pressure up. The wind is a big factor here and these cars are very sensitive to that. Yesterday it was really tricky with the low speed corners but we are still learning about the car and trying to improve it. I think we have found a good direction, it seems more predictable this weekend and it was a lot of fun to drive today. I don’t think there was much more I could do but let’s see tomorrow. We will try to score some good points, at least stay in third, but we always hope for a little bit more.”

“A much better quali than we had hoped for. I am very very happy with the job we have done and with my final lap, where I think I got everything together and the car was feeling pretty good in terms of balance. I don’t think there was anything more to extract from the car and I am very pleased with P4. Also, I had a great lap in Q2 on the Medium tyres, which got us through to Q3. It was a really good decision! We have been struggling yesterday with race pace so realistically it’s going to be difficult tomorrow, but we have changed the car a little bit overnight, which didn’t affect our quali pace apparently, and with a good strategy, I hope we’ll manage to get some advantage from our tyre choice. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow and hopefully we can score some good points.”

“First of all, the team did a great job getting the car ready for quali because we had to make some big changes so we didn't quite get out on time – but we got out, so thanks to the team for their hard work. It was a messy qualifying: I made mistakes on a couple of my runs, especially the first one. I went off the track, compromised myself and lost a bit of confidence throughout the first half of qualifying, which wasn’t ideal. “I was trying to play catch-up and get in a good rhythm and I didn’t really do that until the final session. On the old tyres I matched what I did on the new tyres before, so I felt a bit more confident going onto the new set that had more grip, and I could push that little bit more. It’s a great result, especially here at my home race. Tomorrow’s the important day where we have to convert it into a good result.”

“The positive today is that we're starting P6 tomorrow and our strategy worked out – meaning we have the advantage of starting on the medium tyre and that should help us fight some of the cars around us. We're definitely in a position to fight for another good bunch of points, and that's the goal. We looked stronger in practice yesterday, so we need to go away and understand how we can come back stronger tomorrow. It was difficult to find the optimum balance of the car today, and that affected us in the first sector - we lost a little bit of time there in qualifying. The temperature and wind conditions were different today and were quite changeable, so that was a challenge to work around as well. Overall, I'm happy with our position and tomorrow is another day. I'm confident we can make some positive steps overnight and be in good shape for our home race.”

“It was a very strong day for the team. For me in particular I’ve had a better feeling with the car as the weekend has gone by, so we made some progress on the balance and the set-up. In general, I would say there’s still some work to do, but I’m happier with the car and we’re in a good position for tomorrow. My last lap in Q3 wasn’t exactly as I wanted though. I lost some time in the exits and with traction coming onto the long straights but, still, P7 and a good starting position for the race.”

“I’m happy with eighth place today, especially in quite tricky conditions. It was a clean lap, no mistakes, nothing too spectacular, but good enough for eighth and just short of seventh. It was pretty close there with a few of us within half a second of each other. We’ve been in and around the top 10 all weekend, so we can be pleased with today’s performance. Tomorrow’s race will be interesting, especially in the battle for sixth or maybe fifth position. We’re starting on the Softs, as are most people around us, so we’ll see what we can do. Taking home good points is the target.”

“It’s been a good qualifying overall. It was a very positive session, especially Q1 and Q2, where we were quite comfortable. We lost it a little bit in Q3, so we’ll review what happened there. I’m happy with the progress from Hungary and we need to keep going. We seem to have better pace on Sundays, and qualifying has been the area where we’ve needed to find the most improvements. I think tomorrow will be good, we’re in amongst the top 10 and we have a good opportunity for some decent points.”

“It felt amazing to get back racing after such a long break and I think we started the season with a really exciting race. I think if someone had told us that we would have been P7 on Sunday we would have signed straight away, so I think we can be very happy with my result today, after a difficult start to the weekend. We knew the race was going to be a challenge because the Renaults, McLarens and Racing Points are really strong, but I had some good fights on track and managed to stay out of trouble until the end. It was really a good one for us today!”

“I have struggled a little bit the whole weekend so far and qualifying was a bit up and down. It was not ideal, as I found it difficult to get the car working for me, even though it was not too bad. I had trouble getting into a rhythm. So, it was not a good session and although we made it to Q3, we were not on the ideal tyre and didn’t make enough progress.”

“We were looking pretty strong this weekend and yesterday was a lot better than today but it’s not a weekend to forget yet and there is still a race tomorrow. We were on the back foot slightly heading into qualifying after missing the track time in FP3 and I just struggled getting up to speed. It was tricky out there, the wind is changing all the time and the balance changes with that so we needed a bit of fine tuning. The times in Q2 are also obviously very tight out there so a small amount of time was worth a lot of grid positions and we just lost out. It is what it is but tomorrow we have free tyre choice so hopefully we can do something special with that and get some good points.”

“We were so close to making it to Q3, and I'm happy with that considering I've come in from the cold this weekend! It's a big ask after eight months away to come back and jump into a completely different environment – and into a Formula 1 car I've never driven before and immediately perform. Especially when Silverstone is such a high-speed challenge and the conditions were changeable throughout the day. That meant it was a little bit of a shock to the system today, and it was tricky to hook up the laps perfectly – especially in the first sector. It was a challenge to use both the soft and medium tyre in Q2 and maintain the rhythm, but we almost made the strategy work – which shows the team and I are working well together. I'm also starting to get an understanding of the car, so the goal is to keep learning and adapting quickly. We'll do our homework tonight and aim to score good points tomorrow.”

“We saw this coming. It was our expectation coming into this race weekend, but we did the job that we could in qualifying ahead of the Alfa Romeos, who are our main competitors. That’s all we can do at the moment. There’s a bit of a jump to the next group. As long as we make sure we get the most out of qualifying, even though we’re a little weak there, that’s what we have to focus on – being as high up there as we can. There are a few guys now that might have some penalties, so that might push us a little bit further up the grid. Who knows, that might move us closer to hopefully scoring points again.”

“We have made a few steps forward so we can be happy about this: there is still a lot of work to do, of course, but we are a bit closer to the others and we are moving in the right direction, which is giving us a lot of motivation. I am very happy with my lap, I feel it was as good as it could have been but it was just not enough for a place in Q2. As in the previous rounds, our race pace looks a bit better so I think we have a chance to battle for some points. We will try to have a good start, put up a good fight and we’ll see what happens.”

“The car has been stronger this weekend, I had a good feeling with it and the handling was good, but it’s obvious we are still missing something. I could have been a bit higher up on the grid but I got held up at the last corner, although in fairness the end result wouldn’t have been too different. We have things to work on as a team, we made an improvement but we need to keep going in this direction. Tomorrow’s race should be interesting: I expect us to be better and we should be fighting for a place in the top ten.”

“I felt really good in FP3, I was happy with the car, especially with the balance. We made a few changes for qualifying, but the car just didn’t behave the same. That’s really something we’ve been suffering with – session-to-session it’s not quite the same. It was complicated. We had three attempts in Q1 but none of them were really good. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow. We’re in England, lots can happen with the weather. It was supposed to rain for qualifying and we’ve got blue sky. Maybe tomorrow will be the opposite and we can take advantage of it.”

We made a big reset with the car overnight to be more competitive. The car was feeling much better and I had a lot more confidence. I am very disappointed with myself and the mistake I made on my final lap. I got too greedy on the throttle, and just spun the car around. I think if I had actually done the lap, I probably could have done a lap good enough for Q2 that George showed was possible. We had some doubts coming into this weekend about the potential of the car in qualifying relative to how it was in Budapest. So it shows that the gains still carry over to a track like this. There are some positive signs, I am just a bit frustrated from my side of the garage.

“The race was going really well for me until the contact with Ocon, I had a very good pace and fresher tyres. After the collision, my front wing and a suspension broke, I also had a puncture, so my race was over. This moment cost me a lot of points today, so it’s a real shame and very disappointing to finish the day like this. Today it could have been a very strong race for me.”

We have got to be pleased with our performance. It is three races in a row now we have been faster on Saturday and slower on Sunday, and so we tried to set the car up more for Sunday, so I was quite surprised with the performance we had today. The car felt great it was really fun driving around the track. Once we made it to Q2 we always want more, but our realistic goal was to out qualify the Haas and the Alfa, because the next team, AlphaTauri were just too far ahead. I was pleased with the job I did, and we will see what happens tomorrow.