Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

To be on pole here is amazing. It was a tricky start to qualifying as the track was a bit warmer than FP3, I didn’t expect to be on pole here. Around this track it’s hard to nail a lap and we’ve been struggling to find a good balance in the car. After practice we made quite a few adjustments and we got into a better rhythm. Looking ahead to tomorrow, it’s a long run into to turn one so we need a good start, I think we have a quick car and that’s what is most important. It’s incredible to see the passion of all the fans here, it will be good to have Checo up there with me tomorrow, I hope we can have a fun race with a lot of action.

Ich habe das Gefühl, dass das Team heute mehr verdient gehabt hätte. Das Auto war an diesem Wochenende großartig, und das ist ein Beleg für die harte Arbeit, die das Team schon so lange leistet. In dieser Höhenlage ist der Luftwiderstand auf den Geraden ein geringerer Faktor für uns, und das Update, das wir nach Austin mitgebracht haben, funktioniert gut. Letzte Woche haben wir bei Lewis gesehen, wozu das Auto in der Lage ist, und an diesem Wochenende hatte ich das Gefühl, dass die Pole Position für uns drin war. Ich ärgere mich zwar über den letzten Run, aber letztendlich gibt es keine Punkte für das Qualifying, und ich freue mich, wieder in der ersten Reihe zu stehen. Wir werden Presse-Information 29. Oktober 2022 im Rennen alles geben, und unsere Long Runs sahen gestern ordentlich aus. Ich freue mich darauf, das Rennen zu bestreiten und zu erfahren, was wir erreichen können

Ich bin stolz auf das Team - das ist das beste Qualifying, das wir in diesem Jahr hatten. Es zeigt einfach, dass man niemals aufgeben darf und dass Beharrlichkeit der Weg nach vorne ist. Ein großes Dankeschön an alle hier und in der Fabrik. Was die Runden angeht, so lagen sie ziemlich dicht beieinander, aber wenn deine erste Runde gestrichen wird, muss man natürlich sicherstellen, dass die zweite völlig sauber ist. Es war immer noch mehr Performance drin, aber es ist toll, so nah an Red Bull dran zu sein, nachdem wir sie in diesem Jahr jedes Wochenende gejagt haben. Wir werden also weiter pushen, und ich bin ziemlich glücklich, von P3 zu starten. Es ist ein langer Weg bis zur ersten Kurve...

We had an electrical issue from the beginning of qualifying - it meant I had no reference on lap times, no DRS zones and no information on my brake balance, I had to do everything myself. It was tricky because I was pretty much blind in qualifying, I didn’t know where I was through the lap and it was a big mess for me. But if I look back, I was about to get knocked out in Q1 and Q2 because of the problem, so to come this close to pole is good in the circumstances. P4 isn’t where I wanted to be, we could have been a lot higher, P3 would have been ideal. It is what it is though, we just have to look forward to tomorrow and try to have the perfect race, the atmosphere is amazing and we need to come back stronger. I will require a massive start but I still believe it is possible tomorrow. I am aware of all the effort people are putting into supporting me this weekend, it is a massive feeling to race at home.

It was a difficult qualifying. Riding the kerbs was very tricky for us, especially in the first two sectors, which meant it was challenging to put together the perfect lap.
I tried everything out there today to get a better result but couldn’t make it. Nonetheless, the weekend is not over and we will fight hard all the way to the chequered flag.

We had a really good qualifying, on top of a weekend in which we have consistently been in the top ten. It’s a good result ahead of tomorrow and I’m personally pleased with having delivered the best lap of the whole weekend when it mattered, at the end of Q3. The car was good from the get-go, all we needed was to refine the setup to extract even more performance; the track layout did help, with slow-speed corners that really work well for us. I’m optimistic for tomorrow: we need points for our battle in the championship and we’re in an excellent position to have a good fight. It’s F1, so everything can happen, but we’re up there and that’s what matters today.

We had a tough qualifying, losing quite a bit of time down the straights and not having a great feeling in terms of drivability.
We need to investigate the reasons for this, so that we can improve and challenge our competitors tomorrow.

I’m very happy, it was a good day today and I'm pleased with P8. I did a very good lap in Q3 to put us ahead of both the Alpines, which is the best we could do in the conditions. We're too far off the teams ahead, but that’s usual, so I’m happy because we’ve given ourselves a good chance going into tomorrow’s race. It’s a long run down to Turn One, many things can happen. We’ll switch our concentration to the race and focus on having a clean start, getting away, getting our heads down and having a clean race from then on.

It was a little bit more difficult than expected today but we are still quite pleased to be in ninth position on the grid for tomorrow’s race. It’s good we are on the clean side of the grid and just behind Lando [Norris]. In general, I didn’t feel that fast and struggled with the balance of the car. I was tenth in Q2 and so I think ninth was potentially our maximum today. With the unique temperatures and altitude of this race, we can’t take anything for granted. That’s the same for everyone this weekend and we’ll do our best to take points at the chequered flag.

It’s a good team Qualifying result with both Fernando and I inside the top ten, which is always our minimum goal. We did well to maximise the potential of the car today even though I think there was a bit of performance left on the table in Q3 after a solid Q1 and Q2. Nevertheless, it’s all very close, we’re in the mix for points, and we know tomorrow will be a fight. We’ll need to be at our best as a team to come out with good points from the race. I know we’ll be ready for all possibilities.

I think it was certainly promising in some areas and we had decent pace. The first run in Q2 was decent. There were a few places to improve – a couple of corners in the middle sector - but I felt like it was definitely achievable. On the second run, though, we just came out in loads of traffic and the out-lap was compromised: it was just too slow and so the brakes weren’t in and tyres weren’t in. We needed to prepare better for that, and it ultimately cost us. I think things still look encouraging for tomorrow. We should have some pace, but I would have loved to have shown a bit more and got into Q3 today.

In terms of today’s qualifying, I feel I did the best I could: in the end, I was very close to getting into Q3 again, being just two tenths off. I struggled the whole weekend so far and it hasn’t been easy to have a smooth, trouble-free session, especially on a track that is not among the easiest ones to drive. Sector one has been the toughest one for me to face today, so to get this close to Q3 with my final lap was a positive: I tried and eventually I didn’t make it, but at least this time I feel there was nothing left out there. It’s great to see Valtteri being so fast today, and overall, the progress both cars have been making. The gap for the top ten is quite close, and I think we will be in a good position for fighting for points tomorrow, so let’s see how it goes.

It’s a bit of a shame that we didn’t make it through to Q3 today. If you look at the pace in the practice sessions it was really strong, so I think we should’ve been up there. The track position on our final push lap in Q2 wasn’t great, which meant I couldn’t get the car up to temperature and it compromised the lap. We need to make the most of any opportunity we can tomorrow and look towards the points.

We started the weekend really well yesterday, but since FP3 we’ve started to struggle a lot, sliding all over the place. Normally we’re able to find solutions ahead of Quali, but we haven’t been able to this time. I was pretty happy with my final lap this afternoon, but unfortunately the pace just wasn’t there. We’ll need to try something tomorrow, it’s a tricky track here and our long-run pace is looking stronger, so for sure there’s an opportunity in the race to make our way forward.

My first lap got deleted which was enough for P7 at the time, so it would’ve been fine to get into Q2. The pace is there, and we couldn’t quite use it today as the track limits were the main factor. It’s unfortunate because we were on for a good qualifying which would’ve made tomorrow a lot easier, but we’ve managed in the past to go from the back to the front so I’m hopeful.

Things did not look very promising in FP3 this morning, but we hoped we could take a step forward for qualifying. But that was not the case: we struggled for grip and overall balance – the car would not behave in certain corners. I know from past experience that the podium here is incredible – but that is a long shot right now. But who knows? I am always hopeful that we can do something special in the race tomorrow.

The car felt okay and I was feeling good in FP3, but the track was hotter in Q1 and had lost a lot of grip compared to FP3.
I think it would have been hard to get into Q2 today, however our lap was looking like it could have got us through. We were on the edge today and on the final lap, with the same corner speed as the lap before, I got massive oversteer; it’s really tricky to drive these cars on the edge, especially for us. Tomorrow will be interesting as you think it would be easy to overtake here but it’s actually quite difficult and there’s some cars here that are faster than we expected

Today’s been tricky. We knew coming into the weekend that this would be a difficult track for us.
It seemed more positive before qualifying, so it’s a bit of a surprise not being able to make a step up in the session
We had some issues on the second set of tyres which didn’t help as I could’ve improved my lap time by a few tenths. In the end, we were struggling out there for grip.

We’ve obviously had a bit of a tough weekend with FP1 and then with the test tires which you have to use in FP2, so I got very little running, but I actually think we were alright considering everything. We changed the front wing, rear wing and floor from FP3 to qualifying but the aero balance changed completely and we were completely off so we had to correct it, but we got through to Q2 which was good. This qualifying didn’t matter as much because of the five-place grid penalty, so we’ll start near the back but let’s see what we’re able to do.

We have really struggled for grip and balance here, which is why we are down the order this weekend. We have tried several things yesterday and today, but it has not turned our fortunes around. From our starting position, it is going to be a challenge to get into the points tomorrow. However, it is a long race, we perform better in those conditions, and we know that anything can happen.