Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Das war eines der härtesten Qualifyings, an die ich mich erinnern kann. Mein Herz schlug die gesamte Zeit bis zum Hals. Aber ich bin wahnsinnig dankbar dafür, dass alle die Ruhe bewahrt haben, denn es hätte heute viel schlimmer kommen können. Das Q2 war eine enorme Herausforderung. Mein erster Versuch wurde gestrichen, weil ich die Track-Limits in der letzten Kurve überschritten habe. Deshalb holte mich das Team zum Nachtanken herein und zog frische Reifen auf. Als ich dann auf meiner zweiten Runde war, kamen auf einmal die roten Flaggen heraus. Danach war es sehr eng, um die letzte Runde noch hinzubekommen. Ich überholte einige Autos im letzten Sektor, verlor aber Zeit hinter einem Renault. Plötzlich hörte ich Bono, wie er mich im Funk anfeuerte: „Los, los, los!“ Also habe ich Vollgas gegeben, um noch über die Linie zu kommen. Es war unglaublich viel los und ich musste mich erst einmal beruhigen und fokussieren. Valtteri war das gesamte Wochenende über stark, also hatte ich keine andere Wahl, als auf den letzten Runden im Q3 abzuliefern. Meine erste Runde im letzten Qualifying-Abschnitt war gut und ich dachte, dass es schwer werden würde, mich noch einmal zu steigern. Aber das ist mir auf meiner zweiten Runde ganz knapp gelungen. Es ist schön, auf der Pole Position zu stehen, aber aufgrund des langen Wegs bis zur ersten Bremszone ist dies wahrscheinlich die schlechteste Strecke dafür. Deshalb erwarte ich einen harten Kampf bis zur zweiten Kurve und danach ein forderndes Rennen, ganz besonders, weil ich auf den Soft-Reifen starte. Das ist eine gute Mischung für den Start, aber sie ist nicht ganz so gut für den ersten Stint. Jetzt werden wir uns heute Abend zusammensetzen, um die bestmögliche Herangehensweise an das Rennen zu besprechen.

“P2 was very unexpected and I don’t say this often but I think this was one of my best ever qualifying laps and it felt really good. I was struggling a bit in Q1 and Q2 with the balance of the car and we made some small improvements to stabilise everything and in Q3, especially on the second run, they worked and the lap was good. Of course we want to fight for pole and wins but this year it is not possible all the time, so then to be able to split the two Mercedes cars is very satisfying and I’m happy to be on the front row here. I’m starting on the dirty side of the grid which does make a difference with the initial launch but I’m also on the medium tyre which is the best way for us. If we can have a decent start, the tow effect is very big so who knows what can happen into Turn Two. I think the Mercedes does still have more overall pace so they will be hard to beat but I’m happy with today and I think we really extracted more than we thought was possible and we can be very happy with that.”

Zunächst sah es für mich gut aus. Ich hatte im Q1 und im Q2 das Gefühl, dass ich die Pace hatte und beide Sessions verliefen rund. Im Q3 wurde es dann schwieriger. Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass ich ein paar Fortschritte gefunden hatte, aber die anderen konnten sich noch mehr steigern. Auf meinem ersten Versuch im Q3 waren die Reifen noch etwas zu kalt. Deshalb brach das Heck in der letzten Kurve aus und so fehlten mir bereits auf dem Weg zur zweiten Kurve ein paar Zehntel. Danach wartete ich auf den zweiten Run und diesmal war meine Runde besser. Ich habe keine richtigen Fehler gemacht und bin nicht ganz sicher, warum ich nicht näher an der Pole-Zeit dran war. Diese Fragezeichen müssen wir uns nun im Debriefing ansehen und herausfinden, wo dieser Abstand herkommt. Platz drei ist auf dieser Strecke aber kein schlechter Startplatz und ich glaube auch, dass ich die richtige Reifenstrategie habe. Ich bin hier schon mal von P3 ins Rennen gegangen und ihr erinnert euch sicher noch daran, wie das ausgegangen ist. Jetzt werde ich versuchen, das zu wiederholen. Noch ist alles drin.

“I’m very happy with our performance today: I think P4 was the maximum I could achieve because Max and the two Mercedes were very strong out there. We were able to qualify ahead of our nearest rivals, which is the main thing. It was a really tough session because the wind kept changing and we had the disruption of the red flag too. It’s a credit to the team that we were able to manage the sessions so well and extract the maximum from the car. A podium could be difficult to achieve here, but anything can happen at the start with the long run to Turn 2. If we make a strong start and manage the tyres well, I think we can fight for a good result tomorrow.”

“Overall, I’m happy with fifth position for tomorrow. I knew we weren’t in contention for pole position, but after the Q2 lap it felt like third or fourth was in reach. That lap in Q2 was perfect, so I knew it was going to be hard to improve on that. I did struggle a little more in Q3 and probably could have improved my time, but I am happy with where we ended up. I haven’t normally been strong at this circuit so to be quick all weekend is a positive. We can definitely race tomorrow so it should be fun.”

“I’m very happy with P6 today after a challenging session for us. We were encouraged after our FP3 pace but, as soon as qualifying started, we saw that the wind conditions and track temperature had changed, which compromised our car balance. Nonetheless, I managed to put in good laps from the first run in Q1, saving a new set for Q3, and putting together all sectors on my last attempt to grab P6 for tomorrow. It’s a good starting position for the race so now we need to make sure we finish the job tomorrow.”

“I think it’s a very decent result today. We’ve shown great pace this weekend and it’s definitely been strong with the car performing quite well. On my side, I’m happy with the result and the car was really good through all three sessions. All in all, we’re in the fight for tomorrow, so that’s very positive. It’s great to be starting where we are, and we can have a look at the cars in front. We’re going to be in the mix to fight, so it’s going to be interesting tomorrow. I think anything is possible and we are in good shape to race.”

“It was a messy qualifying with the red flag and traffic on my laps, so it was tricky, but the car had good pace and I felt pretty confident in it. I just didn’t have two sets of new tyres in the final quali and it made my life a bit more difficult. I’m still happy, I don’t think P8’s terrible. It was close, so I don’t think I could’ve done miles better.”

“I’m really happy today because yesterday’s free practice sessions were pretty difficult compared to usual. We didn’t really get the performance we wanted on the short runs, so we were not that confident for Qualifying. Therefore, I think we can be pretty pleased with our position on the grid for tomorrow. I think we have a good race car, our high fuel runs were strong and the balance was how I wanted it to be. We know that the other midfield teams are pretty fast, but hopefully in the race we can keep up with them and fight. We saw so many things happening recently in the races, so hopefully there will be a few opportunities tomorrow.”

“We definitely had the pace to do something good, much better than expected. Unfortunately, we missed our chance, so I’m pretty disappointed, but that’s life. It is frustrating that we didn’t make it to Q3 because I really believe that we had the potential to go through today. From the radio communications, I thought I had no margin to cross the line to start the fast lap so I pushed on the out lap and started my quick lap very close to Kvyat. There was actually a bit more time available, but we didn’t exploit that, so we need to improve in that area. We are starting 11th with a free choice of tyres. I hope that we can benefit from this. The race is tomorrow, points are scored tomorrow and I will give it my all.”

“It was a strong session and I’m quite satisfied with the result because we can fight from that position tomorrow. I think it will be an interesting race that will provide a lot of opportunities, but we were just very unlucky with the red flag in Q2. I think if our session wasn’t interrupted, we could have made it to Q3. I felt good with the car today, and yesterday wasn’t too bad either as our race pace looks quite competitive, so we’ll make the most out of any chances that come our way to fight for points in the race.”

“It was a tough day. We were all set for the final few minutes of Q2 and raring to go after the red flag. Sadly, the engine was overheating while we were in the fast lane so we took the precaution of switching off the car. It’s frustrating because we’ve made it into Q3 consistently this year. I’ve not quite found my rhythm here yet; I just need to put together the finer details and come back stronger tomorrow. It’s not easy to overtake here, but we have a quick race car. If we can get a good start and make some early progress, then it’s all to play for in terms of points.”

That was more than we could have expected and hoped for, so I am very happy. Our goal was to out qualify both Haas and Alfa this weekend and we did a really good job to get ahead of them in Q1. In Q2, it was great to jump ahead of Sebastian as we only had one set of tyres. The car was feeling good, I was pleased with the lap and I think we are looking in really good shape for tomorrow. The last couple of weekends we have been focusing more on the Sunday as we have recognised our Saturday pace has been good, but our Sunday pace has not quite matched it. We have rebalanced our quali and race pace here, which will put us in a good position tomorrow. I think Haas and Alfa still have the edge on us, so I think it will be a race to drive as quick as a I can and check my mirrors to make sure they are not going to overtake me.

"When I crashed I was trying to improve my time. I hadn’t had a good first sector so I was pushing. It seems that I was going too quickly and so I lost the car. It had already happened in turn 2 and then it happened again in turn 4. I tried to avoid the impact, but I couldn’t catch it. Compared to the morning session, the track was quite different during qualifying and I struggled a bit more. I’m sorry to have made extra work for the team, but at least I think the car can be fixed."

“I’m not too sure what happened with Q3 so we need tonight to sit down and look at it with the engineers. Q1 and Q2 felt ok and then everyone just seemed to make a jump in Q3 whereas we didn’t. It didn’t feel like we had much left in the car and my laps didn’t feel bad so there’s a bit of head scratching going on. You can tidy up some things here and there to find a couple of tenths maybe but obviously the gap is quite big today so it’s confusing and we have work to do. There was a bit of spinning and track limits going on which I think was because the wind changed quite a lot from FP3 to qualifying so some people were getting caught out. We’ll do our homework tonight so we have a better day tomorrow. It’s a long run to Turn One and anything can happen so let’s see what we can do.”

“I think I got the most out of the car to be fair. We were struggling yesterday; we were more than a second off P19. We made a good step this morning. We changed parts and so on, but it still wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. We made a few more changes going into qualifying and we’ve actually done very well. The car felt much better, it was much more together, so I’m happy in that aspect. I’m hoping things can happen at the front in the race tomorrow and we can hopefully score from that. On raw pace there’s no chance for us to get into the top 10 if nothing happens, but obviously we need to be ready if there are any opportunities, we need to do our best and get them.”

“We made some good progress but in the end we were still a little short of making it into Q2 today. The track changed a lot from FP3 but we made an improvement in every run and I would have probably been a place higher without having to lift a little at turn two on my final run. We seem to have good pace so we are not out of the battle for points yet. We need to make a good start, as we have done recently, gain a few places in the opening laps and then we are in the fight for a good result: our objective doesn’t change because of today.”

“It wasn’t a good qualifying. We’ve had decent pace in the car all weekend but then in qualifying we couldn’t make the tires work on the first lap. I had lots of traffic on the out lap of my final run. The tires were just too cold. We needed another lap and we just didn’t have that. None of the laps were optimum. It’s not satisfying but it just didn’t come together in qualifying. I don’t know if we look super strong for the race despite a decent FP2 yesterday on the long runs – we look to be where we usually are. We’ll just try hard again tomorrow.”

“We have been reasonably happy with the car so far this weekend and we thought we’d be pretty good in qualifying, but things didn’t work out for us. There’s not much to say, I spun at turn two in my fast lap and that was it. The tyres were probably a bit on the cold side at the start of the lap, I locked the front wheel, hit the kerb and then there was nothing I could do, simple as that. We had the car to go to Q2 but if you don’t put a lap on the board, you start at the back. Tomorrow will be a big challenge but we’ll see what we can do to recover.”

I am disappointed with qualifying today. The session was dictated by the feeling I had on the brakes, and from the warm-up lap I wasn’t getting the bite on the brakes. I locked up and missed my first lap which then puts you on the back foot for your second lap. We need to investigate why as it was much worse than the practice sessions. Tomorrow will be interesting; we geared our car towards the race to be more competitive so that we are able to fight. I am optimistic that we will be able to move forwards, it is a difficult track for overtaking and to follow so a good start will be key. All in all, we will push to move forwards.