Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Leading up to this afternoon, it had been quite a difficult weekend for me. I struggled with the balance and knew that in this kind of heat, you pay the price for the smallest mistake because your tyres overheat. 
Today, I felt good building up to that last lap in Q3. Carlos gave me a nice tow, which helped me to have a bigger margin and seal pole position. It was a good qualifying with great teamwork behind it.                                                                                     
Our competitors are extremely strong here. It seems that they have an advantage in terms of race pace, but I’m confident we can turn it around and hopefully we will keep that first place tomorrow.

Overall we were lacking a bit in qualifying with grip and general pace. We pushed hard but there were a few areas on the track that I couldn’t improve on, especially in my final lap. We have a good race car but looking after the tyres is key, it’s much warmer tomorrow and that will have an impact so we’ll have to see what we can do strategy wise. For the Ferrari’s to be on pole again shows that they have a great car and I expect them to be very quick again. It’s good to have Checo alongside though and we are quick on the straights so let’s see what we can do.

To put in a decent lap in Q3 after a difficult start to this weekend is really good and I am pleased to be back in contention tomorrow. We did some setup changes and managed to get in the rhythm of understanding the tyres which worked out well and hopefully puts us in a position to fight hard in the race. I think patience, a strong start and a good tyre strategy in the heat will be key to getting a good result. It’s also very important we work together to get the best outcome for the Team.

Ich war mit meiner Runde und meiner Performance am Ende von Q3 recht zufrieden, es war eine schöne Runde. Aber aus welchem Grund auch immer, scheinen wir an diesem Wochenende viel weiter weg zu sein, und das gilt auch für die gesamte Verfolgergruppe. Die beiden Top-Teams spielen leistungsmäßig in einer eigenen Liga. Ich bin mir nicht sicher, warum der Abstand auf die Spitze zwischen diesen beiden Rennen größer geworden ist. Wenn man bedenkt, dass ich das erste Training verpasst habe, was dich definitiv zurückwirft, bin ich mit den Fortschritten, die ich gemacht habe, aber wirklich zufrieden, und alle in den Fabriken haben sehr hart mit uns gearbeitet. Im Abschlusstraining haben wir heute einen Schritt zurück gemacht, aber wir haben es geschafft, das Blatt zu wenden. Wir sind immer noch dabei und alle hinter mir haben auch zu kämpfen, also geben wir weiterhin alles.

I’m very happy. P5 is a great result for us today. The car has been working very well, especially in the low fuel conditions. I feel like we did a very good job, extracted everything we could out of the car and I’m very happy with that.  Thank you to the team both at track and the factory for their work to bring the upgrade package to the car and making sure everything was there for us to put together a great final lap.
There’s a long and difficult job to do tomorrow but we’re in the best place we can be to secure some good points. Let’s see what we can do.

Ich habe das Gefühl, dass wir als Team ein bisschen weiter zurückliegen, als wir gehofft oder erwartet hatten, vor allem nach dem gestrigen Tag. Ich persönlich hatte einen guten Start ins Q3, ich lag auf P4 und machte nur auf meiner letzten Runde einen Fehler. Letztendlich denke ich, dass der Rückstand auf die Spitze besorgniserregender ist als die Position. Wir müssen das verstehen, denn wir sind das einzige Team im Feld, das am Sonntag einen geringeren Rückstand auf die Spitze hat als am Samstag. Alle anderen Abstände werden größer, und wir schaffen es, die Lücke zu verringern. Hoffentlich kann Lewis morgen mit Checo kämpfen, aber ich denke, Charles und Max sind im Moment wahrscheinlich zu schnell für uns.

It has been a challenging weekend so far but seventh is a strong position for us to start in tomorrow. We were not totally happy in practice with the car balance and so we’ve been working hard all weekend to improve that. Yesterday the long runs seemed quite strong for us, so let’s see whether we can make some gains tomorrow. Tyre management is going to be a big factor as they are overheating and graining, so it’ll be a real challenge in the heat. The pit lane time loss is also one of the highest of the championship, so a one-stop strategy will be ideal tomorrow, but whether that is possible we’ll have to wait and see. The atmosphere has been great, and we’ve really felt the love from the home fans.

It is good to be back in Q3 after getting the updates, so great job to the team with ending up in a good position. We were able to get back to the position we want to fight at, so I am quite happy, and now we just have to put it all together tomorrow. We expected to struggle to adapt to the new car, so FP1 and FP2 were a challenge, but together with the engineers, mechanics, and the team we were able to come back. We changed our approach to the balance and that worked well straight away, which was the turning point for our result today. Everyone in the factory did a great job about the medium-speed corners, which is what we were aiming for and we achieved that target. Based on our long-run pace, I am sure we can bring good performance with the new updates, as they help with the tyres, so we are aiming for points tomorrow. Strategy will be important between a one-stop or two, but I am confident in the team we will make the right decision.

Well obviously, I don’t want to be out in Q2. It was close but there are several corners where I’m offline and not really able to get it doing what I want it to do. So, for sure, frustrated, especially when we’re close. We have been working hard to get the most out the new parts this weekend, and thanks to everyone who has worked to get them to track. I think we’ve been hanging around the top ten all weekend, so it showed we’re on the brink of it. We’ll gain a few spots tomorrow with some engine penalties, so that will move us up the grid. Then we just need to make a good start and hopefully we can show some good race pace and tyre management. I think that’ll be key for tomorrow.

It’s not been a great day for us today and we didn’t quite find that sweet spot with the car. There are a few areas we need to focus on ahead of the race tomorrow, so we’ll be looking at that closely tonight. Due to a couple of penalties, we do start in tenth place and I will be fighting hard to progress further into the points. I’ll be using the home crowd as extra motivation! It’s always special to race at home and I’m going to go out and give it my all, as always.

It was a good session and starting in P11 tomorrow gives some good opportunities. It was a shame that we had to use two new sets of tires in Q1, and one in Q2, it seems like we are just missing a couple of tenths to be in the top ten in qualifying but otherwise it was a good performance. I hope we can make a step forward with the race pace tomorrow, in the worst case it will only be a bit better than in qualifying. It is hard to predict how the tyres will drop off with these temperatures. In general, I’m happy from my side: my laps were good, just missing a bit of pace. We tend to make progress in the race, with the penalties to Sainz and Magnussen we start from P11 which still should allow us to get into the points.

On the one hand, I am pleased because I got the maximum out of the car today. On the other hand, we are not yet where we want to be. We are still lacking grip, but it is what it is. I think the small improvements we made this weekend have played their part. It is going to be a difficult afternoon tomorrow, but I am positive that we will be able to manage the tyres in the race. I think they will be the biggest issue for everyone – including ourselves – but I think we can look after them. It would be nice to bring some points home on Sunday.

I think I got a lot out of the car today and was happy with it. The wind did pick up and I struggled a bit with this.
I think we’ve been slightly fortunate throughout the weekend so far with the low wind, but it picked up in qualifying and was getting stronger and just went the wrong way for us. The team are doing a good job and have come up with a really different package, so we really are fighting towards Q2 which is exactly where we want to be. Starting P13 puts us in a good place for tomorrow so let’s see what we can do from there.”

I’m extremely disappointed to miss out on Q2 by a couple of hundredths at my home race. Yesterday we were extremely comfortable with the car in the Top 10, with some margin to be even faster and since FP3 I haven’t been able to deliver the same performance and I struggled a lot, so we need a bit more time to analyse. I wasn’t really competitive in Quali, we just weren’t fast enough, and at the moment I don’t know why. I was doing clean laps, but the car was sliding a lot in all the slow-speed corners. Tomorrow is a new day, so we will come up with a different strategy. Race day brings a lot of opportunities and we have nothing to lose, so we will try everything to recover. It will be tough and long for everyone, but I hope we can deliver a good race. It is an amazing feeling to race at your home Grand Prix and I want to put the best performance together for them.

It was a shame to hit traffic in the final sector on my last run. That definitely cost me a spot in Q2 today. My out-lap was also slightly compromised, so there was more on the table in the first sector too. Still, our long-run pace looked promising on Friday and it is possible to overtake here, so there are still opportunities we can take tomorrow. We will have a look at things overnight to see what we can do in the race.

Given how we prepared for qualifying, I was definitely expecting more. In the end, I struggled with balance the whole session: Q1 was not ideal, the lack of grip was a big surprise, and that prevented me from having a clean lap at all. On top of it, I made a few mistakes in sector two during my first run and nearly lost the car in Turn Six on the second one. The lack of rear end was a bit frustrating, and we will have to investigate on that. I think where we are is not where we should be today; tyre management will be tough tomorrow, but I reckon there will be plenty of opportunities for us, especially from P16. The main goal, as always, is to bring both cars in the points, and everything is to play for.

It’s a rule, it’s there for everybody and unfortunately I exceeded it, but it’s definitely something that we should talk about. Conditions are quite tough out there, it’s warm, but on the other hand that might bring about opportunities as people might make mistakes. It’s just a matter of being clean and looking after the tires as much as possible. I think we have the potential to go forwards in the race and that’s what we’re aiming for.

We should have safely been through to Q2, but the wind picked up for my final lap and I lost a lot of time. I was progressively chipping away, so I should have been around eight tenths quicker than the time I did, but it all went away from the chicane onwards; I lost all the grip. The pace was there in the car and there are clear signs of improvement with the upgrade. We’ll check the car overnight and hope that the wind calms down for the race tomorrow.

Given I’ll serve the penalty tomorrow, today was all about helping the team maximise the result and we executed a strong Qualifying. The plan was to go through Q1 and Q2 with only one attempt and then use Q3 to give a tow to Charles, which we did perfectly as a team.
I’m happy because of that and because I’ve been fast and comfortable on track the entire weekend. In Q2 I pushed a bit more to test the limits and the time was very competitive. I would have obviously liked to do a normal session, but I prefer to take the positives as we keep taking steps in the right direction.
We know that tomorrow won’t be an easy race but I’m looking forward to it. We will have to manage the tyres carefully while trying to move up the order, but I’m ready for it!

The pace was really good in the car. The plan was to go out and help Mick with the tow but then he didn’t get through to Q2. We had already planned to go out, so we went out even though there was no point, it was just kind of fun anyway with a fast car. We’re starting last tomorrow but hopefully the car is good again in the race and we can progress.