Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

It feels great to get pole position here on the streets of Singapore! Yesterday we already saw we were competitive and I think we’ve done a good job building up to qualifying. Q3 was super tight but we managed to pull off good clean laps and grab that P1!
The race won’t be easy due to the degradation but it is key to stay focused today and prepare well for tomorrow. The team has been working flat out and we deserve a good result. We’ll definitely go for it!

I've been really happy with this weekend as a whole. I've felt confident in the car and the team did a great job with the tyre strategy. We are on an offset strategy compared to everybody else, so we have an extra set of Medium tyres tomorrow which nobody around us has. So, to get to Q3, and then the front row, with just four sets of tyres and a strategic advantage, that's an exciting place to be. It was a challenging session in the car - sitting in the garage, it's like being in a sauna, and you just need to keep your composure and stay cool. The same will be true tomorrow: traditionally this has been a one-stop race, but the new circuit layout has possibly changed that. I think it's going to be close between a one- and a two-stop, and with that extra Medium tyre available, we can put pressure on Ferrari and try and force an error to get the upper hand. That's what we're looking for.

We've looked quite strong all weekend and it's positive to see such good performance today. Usually, we've been strong in Singapore, so we know that we shouldn't get carried away. We've learned a few things at the last race and will try to take step forward using those learnings for the rest of the season.
In Q3, I made a small error in turn 17, so it wasn't enough for pole, but we have great starting positions as a team and will work on putting some pressure on George (Russel) between us.

A very good day for us today. I’m very happy with P4. I was close to the front – two-tenths – but there was not two-tenths in it today. I felt like I got everything out of it, so I’m very happy. The team have done a great job, so I’m proud of everyone. We’re in a good position tomorrow to score some good points. The race is always very tricky around here, so we’re not getting ahead of ourselves, but we have a good enough car to challenge, and we’ll see what we can do.

The car was feeling incredible yesterday and we had hoped that with some tweaks, we'd be able to challenge the Ferraris. We made some pretty big changes overnight, and it just came away from me again, and we didn't have the speed today. It's obviously disappointing, especially because we clearly had a great package here and George was able to get on the front row. But tomorrow is a new day - and there is a lot to fight for. I hope George gets a great start tomorrow and puts some pressure on Ferraris; it would be great for him to get the win. On my side, I will be pushing to the maximum to go forward and see how the race unfolds in front.

First of all, for whatever reason, the car is stronger on this track. We’ve done a good job and capitalized on the good form of the car, got both cars into Q3 and we start from a good position tomorrow. We know it’s hard to overtake here, I would love to still have the little twisty corners in sector three now that I’m here because we know our race pace isn’t quite there to stay where we are, but maybe on this track there’s a chance. That comes with a little extra pressure as you know it’s a bit of a one-off chance and we really want to grab it and score some points tomorrow.

I’m glad to see that Lance is okay. My Q3 lap was good. I told the team on the radio that it would have been difficult to improve that lap time even if I’d driven round all night! We seemed to struggle a little in FP3: we didn’t look very competitive, so we changed a couple of things on the car and improved it for qualifying – but probably not quite enough. It will be a long, interesting race for everybody tomorrow. We need to maximise every opportunity, but we must be realistic: there are plenty of fast cars in front of us, and we aren’t starting out of position.  I will try and gain some places tomorrow, but it will be a tough race.

Firstly, well done to the entire team for today’s performance as it’s a well-deserved Q3 appearance and one in which we’ve had to put a lot of work in. The car has felt good all weekend so far and we were able to extract the maximum when it counted today to put ourselves in a good starting position for tomorrow’s race. Credit to the team back at the factories who brought these upgrades to Singapore, which allowed us to clearly make a step in the right direction. Focus now turns to the race tomorrow where we’ll be targeting a good race and hopefully some points in the bag.

It’s a very strong result for the team to have both cars in Q3. I don’t think we expected that so that’s a pleasant surprise and we’ll enjoy this today, regardless of what happens tomorrow. It was a really strong performance by Kevin, he was on it all of qualifying, so I really had to give it everything and didn’t get it quite connected and clean on my side, but that’s how it is sometimes. We’ve always been strong in qualifying, the low-speed favors us too. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.

It’s obviously exciting being in Q3, but we didn’t maximise the performance, and it’s something we have to look at. It’s a shame for Yuki because we have a strong package, and he looks comfortable in the car. For me, it was warm-up related because I didn’t feel the jump in grip for the last lap and there was lots of traffic in the last sector, so that was tricky. I’m happy to make it into Q3 but there’s more potential to be higher up. It’s a shame, but I’m still learning and there’s more to come. Today went well, but tomorrow is the important one. I’m starting in a good position in P10, but two hours is a long race and will be challenging. We’ll focus on maximising our car and driving our race.

It hasn’t been a great weekend for us so far. Qualifying was hectic. I couldn’t break late and hard, because I would bottom out, and I’ve also been struggling with the low-speed corners. We just had no rear support. It is, of course, very hard to pass in Singapore on the street circuit, so I’m not expecting a lot tomorrow. We’ve had so many successful weekends this year, we can be proud of what we have achieved so far. It’s more important that we understand where we are going wrong this weekend.

It was a pity for us not to be in Q3 today but, even so, we have put ourselves in a decent position to fight for points in tomorrow’s race when it counts. On our side of the garage, we’ve certainly lacked a few things and we have been playing catch-up in some places to try to optimise car balance. As a team we will, of course, review what we could do better to be better prepared for Qualifying and start more on the front foot. We made a good step from yesterday to today and that’s positive for the team. Tomorrow will be a long and very tough race and I’m confident we can have a strong afternoon and progress ourselves into the points.

I had a complete disaster. I am really disappointed with the result, it was not really what we were expecting and it really hurts. We made a lot of changes to the car this weekend, but nothing really worked, we need to understand it. We started really well with a nice balance in FP1, but then FP2 was very difficult and since then it has been tough because we’ve been making a few changes here and there, but nothing seems to transform the balance. It has been tricky out there with the amount of sliding we’ve been doing and the balance is changing corner to corner. It made it worse that I couldn’t get my final attempt in Q2.

I think 14th is the best we could do today, so I was happy to get out of Q1. In Q2 I just didn’t feel the grip I did in Q1, so I don’t know if the long time in the garage or the outlap prep hurt me. We’ve been so mileage limited this weekend, so I feel like I’ve been playing catch-up all weekend and just didn’t quite get there. The tyres seem to be so soft this weekend, requiring you to drive so slow during the outlap and cool down lap, so I don’t think we fully understood that with the limited track time. I think ultimately with the tyre understanding there was more to be learnt but I don’t think it would’ve changed the result too much. We haven’t done a race run so that will make things a bit more challenging, but we’ll put our focus on tomorrow.

I made a mistake, a lock-up into Turn 14. I’m sorry for my team, it’s a real shame, and I’m very frustrated because the car pace is incredible. We see how tomorrow goes and I’ll try my best to score points.

My laps today were actually good, but we lacked something to be in Q2. I did find some traffic towards the end of my final lap but, overall, we appear to have lost some pace compared to yesterday, and we had to make some compromises with the setup. It felt we couldn’t extract much from our car, which is quite frustrating as, yesterday, it seemed we were on the path to build something good. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, and making progress will not be an easy task; we must focus on making the best out of our strategy and of any situation that may present itself. This is a street track, after all, and we have seen some unpredictable situations in the past here: if we play our cards well, we may still have a chance to bring home a good result tomorrow.

Obviously, it was a disappointing qualifying, however, I’m glad to see that Stroll is okay. Unfortunately, there’s not much more we could have done due to the Red Flag. Our first run was okay, a little bit scrappy, and then we had an issue with traffic starting the final run, but I think it would have been good enough to get us into Q2. We’ll see if we can go forward tomorrow, it’s going to be tricky to get points, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try our hardest.

It’s honestly been an ok weekend from my side, I’ve been comfortable with the track and got up to speed nicely. Quali was tricky with the track evolving so much lap after lap. I was on a good lap at the end but as I went into turn 10 and over the bumps, I had a lot of rear locking and no downshifts. I must’ve lost four or five tenths through there that would’ve put me pretty close to where I needed to be. It’s going to be a tricky race, but we have to be optimistic and try to go forward tomorrow. The car is in a better place now than it was yesterday so hopefully that will help us.

We expected a bit more today, but in fairness Q2 would have been hard to achieve. To be 19th is a disappointment, but a reflection of a difficult session. I was not comfortable with the car and it was really difficult to put together a clean lap: when you don’t have a good feeling on a track like this, you cannot build up consistency and, in the end, you pay the price. We need to understand where we went wrong: it won’t be easy from the back tomorrow, but it’s all still open here. We can still move forward and there will be opportunities, also with the strategy, to gain ground. Never say never, we will give everything to get a result.

I’m okay. I’m frustrated as we have a big job – in the garage and on the race track – ahead of us. I was struggling for grip throughout the qualifying session. We had a bad out-lap with traffic ahead of my final push and we got stopped for the weighbridge. I started a couple of seconds behind Pierre [Gasly], so it didn’t play out the way we’d planned. When I saw my lap wasn’t improving, I pushed really hard in the last corner to try and make up that extra time, and that’s when it went wrong. Let’s see what we can salvage tomorrow in the race.