Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

What a Saturday! It’s so special to get pole position here, in front of all the tifosi. I had a very good feeling from the car already on Friday and today we confirmed our pace. Q3 was always on the limit and we all took big risks in the fight for this pole. When I finally crossed the line and I heard the tifosi screaming like crazy and jumping on the grandstands I knew we had it!
The weekend is not over yet, we want more, and for that we need to stay focused and prepare well for tomorrow. It’s going to be a challenging race but we’ll give it everything to fight for the win and give the tifosi around the world something to keep cheering us on!

It was very close all the way through quali and Ferrari have been quick throughout the whole weekend. From our side we did everything we could to be as competitive as possible and I was happy with the lap in Q3, so nothing really to complain about. It was just not enough for pole but we know we have a good race car. It is all about the race pace and if we have better race pace, like normal, we will try to put the pressure on them. I am happy with how we set up the car for the race and hopefully that will pay off on Sunday. I know the win is something that could happen. If it’s 10 in a row that would be amazing, but we have to execute the race in the best possible way to achieve that.

Q3 was really on the limit and I'm happy with my two laps, considering where we started from this weekend.
The direction we went in with the set-up of my car yesterday wasn't the right one, although at first I thought it was. So we had to adapt and make some changes for FP3, a session that still felt a bit inconsistent. But overall, our performance was good today and the gaps are really small between all of us.
Let's see what we can do tomorrow.

You need to be dynamic in this new qualifying format as you jump down the tyre compounds, and I think we did a good job managing it today. The engineers did a great job overnight and we hit the ground running this morning, I felt more comfortable in the car. With the softer tyre compounds Pirelli have brought here, I think there’s the option to tune the set-up more aggressively for qualifying or favouring the race pace a little bit more. We’ve done the latter, so I hope it pays off tomorrow. There’s always lots of talk about a tow here, but it’s always a double-edge sword; I chose clean air on each run and it worked well today. Overall, though, this was a session that just shows how you need to get every detail right in F1: in Q1, I didn’t get the tyre in the right window and was P13; then in Q3, we ended up P4. Now it’s full focus on the race and I hope we can challenge for the podium.

Today wasn’t a great day. Adding a new engine and missing a large part of FP3 today was not ideal as it meant that we didn’t get to run the soft tyres before going into qualifying, so we were less prepared for Q3. Overall, I don’t think we maximised our performance and showed what we could do today. The Team, however, did a tremendous job turning the car around in time for qualifying. We had a good Friday and great race pace yesterday but today we just didn’t capitalise on our performance. Tomorrow, I am optimistic that we can still show our strong pace and we will do our very best to come through the field.

We came into Monza hoping to get into Q3, so P6 is great! We have a great car and quick cars are ahead of us in terms of race pace, so in that sense it’s fine. If we can hold position against the Astons and the McLarens, I’ll be pretty happy. The car has been feeling good and until Qualifying, we’ve been making changes to the car every session, as we struggled to dial it in a little bit, but then everything came together. We knew this track was going to suit us, but we need to use these weekends to pull further ahead in the Constructors’, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow.

Not a bad result. I felt like I did a pretty decent lap at the end there and there wasn’t too much more left in it. I’m happy with what I did. Of course, I would like to be a bit more competitive but I think that’s about where we expected to be. We’ll do some work tonight to prepare for the race and see what we can do tomorrow.

That wasn’t the greatest session. We started off the weekend well in FP1 on the first run, then it feels like things have got more complicated and I just haven’t found the sweet spot with the car. It was improving through qualifying, and we made it to the top ten, but I still didn’t have the feeling I wanted with the car on the final run. We know how close the times are in qualifying, and that also translates to very similar race pace, which can make it hard to make up positions through the field, especially early in the race. George did a great job today to get on the second row, and I hope I can make progress forwards tomorrow.

Not my best qualifying, but not a bad day. Struggled a little bit to find the last couple of things on the final lap. Probably a little bit too close to the car ahead. That compromised me maybe a little bit more than I was hoping for but yep, other than that I think it was pretty much as good as we were going to get between Oscar and myself. Oscar did a good job. Tough day but I think we did the maximum.

It wasn’t our best Qualifying today finishing in 10th position. We still managed to make Q3 again and it means we can fight for points tomorrow. Today it seems we performed better in Q1 and Q2, but we struggled to match this pace in Q3 on the Softs. There are no points awarded for today and our strength has been on Sundays. We will hope for an unusual race tomorrow and look to capitalise on any opportunities.

We struggled a lot yesterday, but straight away in FP3, the car felt much better. We made a big step and quite some changes to the car, and that worked well today. I’m pretty frustrated and disappointed with myself, because I think I could’ve done a better lap at the end. I apologise to the team, as I think there was the pace in the car to get to Q3. The team did well, and the track position was good in qualifying, I lost some time in a couple of places, so the frustration is more towards myself. For tomorrow, the race pace doesn’t seem too bad, and we’re just outside the top ten, so we just have to put it together, and points can be possible.

Overall, we’ve been progressing over the sessions, building up my confidence. You can feel the limit, but it’s also about knowing the step up in grip between the different compounds, if you make changes what it’s going to do to the car, and that just takes some time. With both cars being so close to Q3, we definitely had the potential to make it, but unfortunately, Alonso went off the track right in front of me, so there was some gravel on my line. However, it would’ve been tight regardless. I’m happy to have made some improvements and I’m sure there’s more to come. It’s a good position to be starting in, and with both cars so close to each other, I’m positive about points for the team tomorrow.

Our pace on the soft tire in FP3 was as expected, the soft tire always helps a weaker car more than the hard tire. Going into qualifying, I expected the challenge to be very difficult. I’m glad we made it into Q2, I ended up with no tow in Q1 which is quite costly around here but somehow, we still managed to pull it off, so I was quite surprised and happy about that. Q2 wasn’t perfect, not super smooth and the final attempt was a bit difficult, but P13 is a realistic picture for us.

Qualifying has been a pretty straightforward job and to get a place in Q2 is a good result: the car felt decent with all tyre compounds, which was an advantage with the Alternative Tyre Allocation rules. Our pace hasn’t been quite there earlier this weekend, but we made a step forward compared to practice: we are good on the straights, but we lost a little bit in the corners. I reckon the pace of our closest competitors is quite similar to ours, and hopefully we’ll get to put up some good battles out there tomorrow to make up some ground. After all, this is Monza: races are often unpredictable here, and we might still have a chance climb up the grid and get into the top ten.

This whole weekend we’ve struggled to get any tyre other than the Hard tyre working and that showed. We need to look into that as I felt really comfortable on the Hard compound and we were really good with both cars, then I struggled a little on the Medium. It was really good until we switched compounds and we’re not completely sure why. We haven’t done many long runs so it’s quite difficult to know exactly where we’re at for tomorrow. The goal is to move forward, and we should have the car to do it so let’s see what tomorrow brings.

We made a significant step forward, in particular between FP3 and Qualifying, compared to how we struggled yesterday: we could have been in Q2 but, unfortunately, I found traffic at the end of my launch lap, which ended up costing me too much time in sector one. It wasn’t a clean lap, sadly, and we ended up going out in Q1. Tomorrow will be challenging, but we head into race day with a positive approach, ready to seize any opportunity that will come to us. We need to make the right calls and move forward in the field.

We knew this was going to be a tough day as a team and unfortunately that is the case with both cars out in Q1. Obviously, that’s a disappointing feeling and not where we want to be but tomorrow is the race and we will see what we can do to advance. We know the areas where we are lacking pace – it has been the focus for us this weekend in practice – but ultimately, this circuit does not suit our overall package and that has shown today. We have work to do tomorrow but we will see what we can do on strategy and aim for a positive race.

Obviously, it’s very disappointing to exit Q1 today. It was clear that our package was not quite suited to this track and I feel like both cars maximised their potential today, finishing with very similar lap times. It’s up to us to really pin down the causes, which led to this lack of performance and I am sure we will find some solutions going forwards. In the meantime, the focus shifts to tomorrow and coming up with a plan to fight our way up the field to salvage something from this weekend. I am sure we can race much better tomorrow and we look forward to the fight.

I was quite happy on the soft tire in FP2 and FP3, we looked pretty decent on that tire but we just didn’t have the same balance on the hard tire – unfortunately. It’s typical that during an ATA weekend we look like we have some decent pace, but not on the hard. Anyway, the race is tomorrow, and I hope we can find something on the other compounds and be a bit more competitive.

It was a tricky session on track; I just wasn’t feeling any grip from the tyres so I couldn’t push where I needed to. I didn’t get a single lap yesterday during the first and second practice sessions, and while that didn’t help, I don’t think it was the cause of today’s result. We’ll regroup as a team this evening and look through the data to see if we can identify where things went wrong today. Tomorrow’s race will be tough – I’ve got a big job to do – but we’ll be prepared for anything that comes our way.