Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

We did well as a team and it is of course a positive day for us. I didn’t have the best start so we need to investigate what happened there but after that we had good race pace. Initially for the first 10 laps or so it seemed like the gap to Charles wasn’t really growing but then I think at one point the tyre degradation started to kick in a bit more and I could close the gap and I got ahead. Tomorrow is a new day and there are no guarantees, I still expect it to be very close and I the battle tomorrow will be difficult. We are very focused on what is ahead and we hope to do a good job tomorrow.

The Sprint taught us some valuable lessons ahead of tomorrow’s race. My start was really strong, and then I got out of Max’s DRS zone by creating a gap and was confident until we started to have some graining in the closing laps.
We may have paid the price for pushing too hard at the start, so that’s something we have to work on tonight. If we manage to cure that, it will be a good fight tomorrow.

I am happy with the result of the sprint and looking forward to tomorrow starting from P3. We managed to minimise the damage from quali so I am happy with that, it was a nice save and it was all we needed for today, anything more would have been a bonus. I got a really strong start and after that I was just progressing through the field, it got a bit messy with Daniel when we touched, but overall it was a nice sprint for me and we got some good overtaking done. I think there is some fine tuning we can do for tomorrow and hopefully we are able to do it to be in the mix for the win, which is the target. We certainly have good pace and I am looking to produce another solid weekend for the Team, hopefully we can come out on top against the Ferraris. We have seen in Melbourne and we have seen here already that it can change fairly quickly so either team can turn things around and we certainly expect the Ferraris to be strong. I got really close to Charles today near the end but it was just a sprint so let’s what we can do over race distance.

Today was a good day and I’m fairly happy with the comeback. The start went well and then I was able to pick up places one at a time, with strong pace and good tyre management all the way. It was a solid Sprint race but most importantly, we are back in a good position for tomorrow.
After a difficult day yesterday, I want to thank all the tifosi for their support. It’s such a positive boost. The weekend is still not over and I will give everything tomorrow to deliver a good result.

A tough Sprint! I just didn’t have the pace to keep up with the guys in front, but we got the best result we could today and a few points, so I'm happy.  We’ve got a good position for the race tomorrow, we can fight for some more points from P5. There’s a few things to try to work on and figure out tonight, apart from that, I'm happy.

I didn’t really know what to expect for the Sprint because we haven’t really had dry running this weekend. With the issue in practice this morning, it was really just a ‘go out and see what we got’ situation. I felt like I had a good start, so I was looking ahead. I got Fernando [Alonso] early and was looking to get Kevin [Magnussen]. But by the time we got to the braking zone I ended up sandwiched between Kevin and Sergio [Perez] going into the braking zone and we made contact. Luckily there was no damage. I tried to settle into a rhythm, and I think we struggled a bit towards the end with the tyres but other than that it was pretty good and we scored some points. I think we had a bit more to show, but I’m looking forward to tomorrow. It should be good.

First of all, I want to thank the team who did a great job putting the car back together: there were so many things they had to change but they were brilliant and thankfully everything worked perfectly. I always trust the crew to get the car right, but they had a big task ahead of them and they delivered. Once we got racing, it was a fun afternoon with a lot of battling and some nice overtaking. I had a good, close fight with Fernando [Alonso] which was enjoyable, but overall it was an exciting Sprint for me. I had a bit of wheelspin at the start and I lost a few places, but after that my performance was strong. The car felt really good in terms of balance and we had good pace, so we should be in a strong position for tomorrow as well.

First of all, what a result. It’s great, it feels amazing, I can’t really believe it – it’s that close to top-three. P4 is the best qualifying for Haas ever, so I’m really proud of that and the team. I went off, lost the car and went all the way through the gravel. I managed to just keep it going and do a bit of a four-point turn and get back on track. The car was just phenomenal, and I can’t believe we’re P4. It’s looking like it’s going to be dry tomorrow so we’ll just do the best we can, I don’t know what to expect. We’ll go and have fun and give it everything we’ve got like we did today.

We weren’t fast enough today, so it was a disappointing Sprint Qualifying for us. There was a lot of tyre degradation and our start was far from ideal, so we need to look into that tonight. We knew that it was going to be tough to keep Perez and Sainz behind with the pace they have, so we thought seventh was possibly a realistic position today. But, with the tyre graining, it was made harder to achieve this. We have tomorrow to recover and today is almost like a Q4! We will review our tyre selection and will see what the weather is going to do tomorrow, because it looks like there is a chance of rain. There’s definitely more to play for.

A mistake at Turn 7 led to me losing over a second so I think we would’ve been through. It’s a shame but now we have two more races to come and hopefully we’ll be able to fight our way through – the car feels great. Already in Melbourne we were able to fight pretty hard with the cars around us and one thing which was very positive was that we were able to keep the tires alive for quite a while. It’s all to play for tomorrow and hopefully we have a bit of luck on our side to be able to maybe get into the points.

Es war heute nicht sehr angenehm für uns, und es war schwierig, zu überholen. Wir hatten eine gute Pace, aber nicht den Speed auf der Geraden, um wirklich voranzukommen. Die Sprintrennen sind sehr kurz und es bleibt keine Zeit für den Abbau der Reifen, was normalerweise zu Unterschieden zwischen Fahrern und Autos führt und Chancen eröffnet. Wir hatten heute auch keine guten Starts, was nicht zu uns passt, denn in letzter Zeit hatten wir immer solide Starts. Morgen wird es auf die Strategie ankommen. Wir müssen etwas anders machen als unsere Konkurrenten, damit wir die Möglichkeit erhalten, gegen sie zu kämpfen und so im Feld nach vorne zu kommen. Es war bisher ein schwieriges Wochenende für uns, an dem es uns schwergefallen ist, die Reifen auf Temperatur zu bringen. Wir müssen die Dinge in den Griff bekommen und morgen alles herausholen, was möglich ist.

I’m happy with how today went; I had a good start and gained a few positions there, which I think was the turning point for my race because the start really is key here in Imola. After that, the car seemed good, I liked the set-up and how the car behaved so was able to trust it and gain another position. The pace was better today but it’s still not that strong, compared to the cars around us, so there’s still some performance to find with this package. Obviously, we’ve still got some work to do to get into the points tomorrow, but we’ll work hard tonight to get ourselves into a good position and we’ll see how the race goes.

It was a shame that we were not able to hold onto a top 10 position, but I think the Safety Car did not help us and we struggled with some graining on the Soft tyres late on. I managed to defend strongly in the first few laps, which created a train of cars behind me. Mick [Schumacher] had the advantage of being on the Medium tyres and, once he got past, I lost a few positions quite quickly. I just did not have the pace to hold on. The Sprint always allows you to learn a lot about the car and what to expect in the main Sunday race. One thing we saw today is that the Soft tyre will not be the preferred compound tomorrow.

Heute ist es so, wie es ist - im Hintergrund wird viel gearbeitet, aber letztendlich haben wir es dieses Jahr noch nicht richtig hinbekommen, und jeder arbeitet so hart wie möglich daran, das zu korrigieren. Das Team hat schon sehr viele harte Jahre hinter sich. Die meisten Leute, mit denen ich zusammenarbeite, sind seit mehr als 20 Jahren in diesem Team, sie haben also schon einiges mitgemacht. 2013 war nicht das beste Jahr, aber seither hatten wir großartige Jahre. Wir halten zusammen und versuchen, alle zu motivieren. Das ist die Situation, mit der wir konfrontiert sind, und jeder arbeitet mit vollem Einsatz. Wir kämpfen darum, das Auto zu verstehen, uns zu verbessern und im Laufe des Jahres Fortschritte zu machen. Das ist alles, worauf wir im Moment hoffen können.

We did everything we could today, but we just did not have the pace to make up significant ground. I enjoyed battling with Lewis [Hamilton] – he kept me on my toes! I have enjoyed having the Sprint format return because it is a great challenge to have just one practice session before qualifying on Friday and then racing on Saturday. It helps spice things up a bit. Now, though, we will go away and look at the data to see where we can improve for tomorrow. There is a chance of mixed weather conditions, so, hopefully, we will get a bit of rain and the race will come to us.

It was a tricky race overall today and it was always going to be a challenge for us to gain places. To finish in sixteenth was probably the best we could have achieved. I had a decent start, avoided the incidents and from there it was a train with the cars ahead. It was difficult to progress, but tomorrow, I’m confident we can do more. Scoring points is very much our target. We gained a good understanding on the tyres today, which will help with our strategy. There could be some rain too, and, as we know in Formula 1, anything can happen.

This weekend is not going the way we wanted. Zhou didn’t give me much space, it’s not a great place to be side-by-side, and unfortunately there was contact, but that’s just the way it is sometimes. After that, the car suffered some damage and it wasn’t easy. If it could rain tomorrow, that would be great for us, as I think with our current performance we will struggle a bit, the straight-line speed just isn’t there this weekend. We’ll really look at the strategy tonight and try everything we can tomorrow to move forward.

Unfortunately, we suffered a brake system issue which ended Qualifying early for us,” he said, continuing: “These things happen, and we’ll go away and investigate tonight so we understand what went wrong and how we resolve it.
Thankfully, tomorrow’s Sprint event should offer us some opportunities to improve our position on Sunday’s starting grid.

It was definitely a tricky session. With FP1 being full wet conditions and Qualifying being mixed it was challenging but it’s a challenge for everyone.
My issue is still not having the feeling to really push the car; I don’t always have it in full dry conditions and mixed conditions usually only make it more difficult.
It was good though to get the opportunity to drive the FW44 in full wet conditions as I am sure we will have other wet sessions throughout the year.
Hopefully we can move forward in the F1 Sprint tomorrow and secure a better starting position for the race on Sunday.

It’s obviously disappointing to end a race like this, especially because we have a good car that allows us to be competitive. I was in a hard but fair fight with Pierre [Gasly] and Lewis [Hamilton] throughout the whole of sector one and the beginning of sector two, I made a move on Pierre in turn nine and I was ahead going into the braking zone. I got a big hit on the exit, and that spun me into the wall: it was a big surprise but that was the end of it. It’s a shame as we had a good opportunity to gain some places, the car has quite a bit of damage and it’s going to be a lot of work for the mechanics, unfortunately. Now we need to focus on making a comeback tomorrow: we still have a good car and you never know what can happen. The team is working in the right way, our upgrades work and we saw today that overtaking is possible. We will do our best – we made it into the points from last at turn one in Melbourne and we’ll try to do it again this time.