Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Heute war ein guter Tag für mich, es war ein sauberes Rennen, in dem ich die Pace hatte. Es fühlt sich so an, als ob es eine Weile her ist, seit ich das letzte Mal ein Rennen auf dem ersten Platz beenden konnte. Umso mehr freue ich mich darüber. Ich hatte einen guten Start und auch einen sauberen Restart, das war der Schlüssel. Das Auto fühlte sich durchweg gut an und es war super, heute Erster zu werden und dafür auch einige Punkte einzufahren. Leider gehe ich morgen vom Ende des Feldes ins Rennen, aber der Speed ist vorhanden, entsprechend werde ich alles geben und kämpfen. Es gibt hier Überholmöglichkeiten, also hoffe ich, dass ich mich nach vorne arbeiten kann, um ein gutes Rennen für das Team abzuliefern. Das wird nicht einfach, aber wir haben die Pace und mit der richtigen Strategie können wir etwas erreichen. Und ich verspreche, dass ich dafür mein Bestes geben werde.

To be on pole tomorrow at a track like this is a real positive for us, we had a good start and the race went better than expected. We scored a few championship points and it’s great to be starting at the front tomorrow. I was giving it my all to keep close to Valtteri today, but I still expect a tough race tomorrow as Lewis is starting in P4 and they have a bit more pace than us, we know we are slower than the Mercedes here. I’m hoping for another clean start tomorrow so I can create a bit of a gap at the beginning, because I will definitely need it later in the race. It’s going to be an interesting battle and we’ll see what happens, we’ll keep pushing and try to make the most out of it.

It’s really nice to be up there. We had a good start, that was important, but I knew we could. Our starts have been great all year, so we had the potential. I tried to get Max [Verstappen] in Turn One. I had a really good run – I was able to brake quite late, but he also had a decent run into the turn, so I tried to hang on the outside and then I could see that I was running out of room, so I had to come out of it. I think that’s where I got hit from behind. That’s just one of those situations but obviously I’m sorry for Pierre [Gasly]. It was nice to gain a couple of positions, and then we settled into a rhythm. I didn’t have the pace to keep Valtteri [Bottas] and Max in sight, but at least I was pulling away from the others. It was a lonely but happy third and a front row tomorrow. It’s not done yet, but it will be.

Good sprint quali from us as a team. First of all, I think it was a good decision to start on the Soft tyre – it worked well for both Daniel and myself. We both gain a position tomorrow, and Daniel got a point today too, so that’s great for the team. I think it sets us up even better than we were expecting for the race. So, a positive day. I think the race pace is good as well, and we can look forward to hopefully some more points tomorrow.

Gratulation an Valtteri zu einer großartigen Leistung. Für mich war es ein frustrierender Tag mit einem schlechten Start. Der Grund dafür war, dass meine Räder durchdrehten, das konnte ich danach nicht wiedergutmachen. Während des Rennens war es schwierig, nah genug heranzukommen, um die McLaren zu überholen. Das müssen wir uns jetzt im Detail ansehen. Wir haben heute wichtige Punkte verloren und müssen nun hart arbeiten, um morgen die bestmögliche Punkteausbeute mitzunehmen. Natürlich hatten wir uns heute mehr erwartet und wir können uns Tage wie diese nicht leisten, besonders in einem so engen WM-Kampf wie in diesem Jahr. Jetzt liegt noch viel Arbeit vor uns, um das heutige Rennen genau zu analysieren und uns auf morgen vorzubereiten. Hoffentlich können wir dann den Schaden begrenzen, aber ich weiß, dass Valtteri und ich alles geben werden.

We had a good Sprint Qualifying and maximized our potential, finishing 6th and 7th. Due to Valtteri’s penalty, we will each move up a place and lock out the third row of the grid, which is the best we could have wished for.
I expect the race to be a tough one, because our competitors ahead have had a strong pace all weekend. Our job will be to score as many points as possible, and if we have a perfect race, we can put some pressure on the four cars in front.
Tyre management will be a key factor tomorrow, especially on the first few laps where you have to push and are at risk of tyre degradation. We have some useful data from today and will work on finding the best front-wing setup based on that.

Obviously the crash in FP2 didn’t help our preparation for the Sprint Qualifying. My confidence with the car and around that section of the track was a bit compromised and after lap 1, I focused on regaining that confidence little by little. The start wasn’t ideal either, as I has to brake hard when Gasly went into the McLaren and I was stuck behind them, losing a position there.
However, I’m confident that tomorrow we will have new opportunities and we’ll do our best to score a good result. Last but not least, I want to thank our great team of mechanics for getting the car ready for the afternoon session. On to tomorrow.”

I am really happy about today’s result, especially in front of our home fans, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. We knew we had to be aggressive at the start and we did it, making up two places. We’ve given ourselves a good position to start tomorrow, now we have to finish the job and hopefully gain even a little more. Tomorrow will be a very different race, with a lot of fuel, stops and strategy coming into play: but we are confident. Our pace looked good earlier today and we have good straight-line speed to help us defend. We can go out there and do our own race.

I think we have a good chance in the race tomorrow, we start P8 and there should be more opportunities to come through the field with our strategy. I was hoping to gain a few more places, but my start wasn’t ideal and it was pretty hard to pass. We need to work hard tonight to find some more pace, but I am looking forward to it. On the incident with Stroll, I just didn’t have anywhere to go so had to cut the corner to avoid hitting the curb and damaging my race, I gave back the position as soon as I was able to.

That was a fun race today. It was not an easy decision to go for the soft tyre over the medium because, while it provides a better launch, degradation becomes a factor later on. We made a good start and gained some places in what was quite a tricky first chicane with all the tyre smoke and loose grass. I then had some good wheel-to-wheel racing with Checo [Perez] later on, too. He gave the position back to me a little later than I expected, which lost our DRS train and allowed [Fernando] Alonso to close in, but we were able to hold onto 10th. We will start tomorrow’s race in the mix for points and I think we can extract a little bit more pace from the car overnight. Overtaking is tricky here so strategy will be important, but I am looking forward to racing again tomorrow.

We took two positions today and it means we start a little higher tomorrow so I am happy with that. I would have liked to have gained more, but it was difficult to follow closely here. If I was at home watching as a fan, then I would probably have enjoyed it because you get two days of racing. It’s going to be a race decided by small margins tomorrow, so we have to make sure our pit-stops and strategy are good.

That was a fun race today. It was not an easy decision to go for the soft tyre over the medium because, while it provides a better launch, degradation becomes a factor later on. We made a good start and gained some places in what was quite a tricky first chicane with all the tyre smoke and loose grass. I then had some good wheel-to-wheel racing with Checo [Perez] later on, too. He gave the position back to me a little later than I expected, which lost our DRS train and allowed [Fernando] Alonso to close in, but we were able to hold onto 10th. We will start tomorrow’s race in the mix for points and I think we can extract a little bit more pace from the car overnight. Overtaking is tricky here so strategy will be important, but I am looking forward to racing again tomorrow.

Today could have been better and we didn’t quite make the most of all the opportunities. We had a good first lap and I was a bit unfortunate with the run out of Turn 2 and then the Safety Car coming out just as I was making a move at Turn 4. After that we were following Sebastian [Vettel] the whole way and I couldn’t complete the move on him. It was one of those races where we could have probably gained more places. Tomorrow is the main race, which is longer and there will be more things happening with strategy also to come into play. We’ll be going for it to make our way into the points.

I think that was probably the maximum that we could have done today; it’s good to move up the grid for the race. Turn one was always going to be quite tricky, especially from the mid-pack backwards, but I think I managed to navigate my way through and avoid the first lap incidents. From then, I didn’t really have the pace to move any further forward and pass the Alpine ahead of us. I think tomorrow will be tricky as there are cars behind us who have better pace, but you never know what can happen in the race and we’ll take advantage of any opportunities that come our way.

We made a poor start and off the line I got overtaken by a few cars. However, we then made a good recovery and I managed to pass some cars and fight back. The race was going alright, the pace felt good but we then had an issue with the front wing. I had massive understeer, and the car was not handling how it should have been which compromised the race. In the end I ended up in the same position that I started, this time behind Nicholas, so now we move onto tomorrow.

It’s a frustrating day. I had quite a good start and had gained a couple of positions before we headed into Turn 4 but unfortunately, I had contact with Kubica and suffered front-wing damage. After I came in to change it, I think I had a good recovery drive and was able to make my way forward. The car felt good today and the pace was quite strong, I really maximised the opportunity of the soft tyre, so I’ll take this experience into the race tomorrow. I think it’ll be difficult, but I will aim to make my way into the points.

I think we maximized our package today. I think our team could be in front of one of the Alfas if we do everything correct and we did. It looked like quite a hectic race from the beginning – loads of spins ahead and some dust – so it made for an exciting race for fans. From my side, I think we can still improve our balance because after one free practice yesterday and one free practice today, we haven’t maximized it yet, but we’re making the right steps in the right direction and that’s good.

The race didn’t start well for me: I don’t know what happened exactly, but I didn’t manage to pull off cleanly from the grid and lost a lot of ground. Paradoxically, that gave me a good opportunity to see what was going on ahead of me and I could place myself really well into the first chicane, where I gained a couple of places. Then I did a bit of a rally-style move into the second chicane, passing in the middle of two other cars. Unfortunately, I was then hidden by Tsunoda and I got stuck in the gravel. I was nearly switching the engine off, but then I told myself to try and apply some of my rally skills to come of out the gravel: don’t ask me how but I managed! For the rest of the race I had a lot of oversteer in the right-hand corners and I couldn’t really make up many places: I only understood why when I got off the car – the rear of the floor got badly damaged in the crash and that caused all the balance issues.

The pace was where we were imagining it to be. Following here seems to be very difficult – the tires overheat straight away, we slide and essentially we fell back a bit. Tomorrow is a new race, a longer race and with strategy you might be able to do something. Normally my starts are pretty good, I usually find the right way around.

I’m obviously very disappointed, it’s not been a good day. We had a great start on the Mediums, I managed to pass Lando, and also Lewis. Then at the first corner I was a bit surprised by Daniel, I touched the back of him a little bit and damaged the front-wing. I didn’t initially know how bad it was, but it broke off completely and went under the car at Turn 3, I couldn’t turn anymore and went straight into the wall. The target tomorrow is of course to try and get into the points. I will watch the replay tonight and analyse the possible overtaking spots, as it seemed that it was difficult out there today to make up many positions. We know that anything is possible though, and we’ll try our best to come back tomorrow.