Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Very happy. A very stressful race. When I saw all the Soft tyre guys come through at the start, I thought we were in a bit of trouble and then their tyres fell off pretty quickly, so that was good. Safety Cars were my friend today, definitely once Max [Verstappen] got behind me. But the pace was reasonable and I think, in a race where you had to manage the tyres, cars on other compounds, we did a really good job, so very happy.  
Anything we can try to learn for tomorrow is going to be important as well. I thought once Max got through into second, I was going to have my work cut out – but the pace was good, I managed the tyres well and a first Sprint win sounds pretty cool. Finally, congratulations to Max on his third Championship, it’s a remarkable achievement.

It’s a fantastic feeling, to be three time World Champion is incredible. It's brilliant for the Team, my family and my friends too. From day one my family have contributed so much of their lives to make me the person I am today. Luckily, I got to FaceTime my mum after the race, she was already on the champagne! It’s beautiful because my mum understands, she is a racer too.
My dad was here at the track also so it’s nice to have them close. We talk about performance of the car but I think that the most important thing is the atmosphere and the people working in the Team. We've had a lot of great results in tough conditions, but we did an incredible job. It’s been a fantastic year and the Team have been working tirelessly throughout the whole year. It’s been so enjoyable to be part of this group of people. For now, I’m just enjoying the moment and hopefully we can keep this momentum going for a while, you know we’ll keep on pushing and trying to do the best we can.

First of all, congrats to Oscar on his Sprint win and congrats to Max [Verstappen] on his third Championship. It was a tough race for me, a bad start made everything much trickier, but we fought back well. Some fun racing, good overtakes, all the way to the last lap on George. It was tough but another podium for our team is great. 
Oscar’s done a mega job this weekend. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, he hasn’t and he’s capitalised. He’s done a better job, so hats-off to him.

I really enjoyed that! The first lap was a little bit wild. I had turn six in my mind as the overtaking opportunity on the Medium runners. I knew I would have the advantage at the beginning, so I was pleased to pull off the move on Piastri. I was surprised by how quickly the Soft tyre dropped off and we were fortunate that there were a number of safety car interventions. Without that, we may have finished outside the points. That is what can happen during a sprint weekend though where you have limited practice and limited knowledge on the tyres. Having said that, if we were on the Medium we would have still finished P4. Nothing gained, nothing lost.

It was positive to see our pace advantage over Ferrari today. We were on the same tyres as them and we were faster. We are in a great place tomorrow to fight against the McLarens too. It’s going to be interesting from a strategy perspective so let’s see what we can do. Finally, Max winning the world championship is fully deserved. It’s an incredible achievement so congratulations to him. We need to raise our game to give him more of a challenge next year.

I was quite slow at the beginning on the Medium tyre. I knew that the degradation would be high though and that the race would come back to us. Did I know that I was going to be able to get back up to fifth? No, but I was hoping I could the whole time. I tried to position my car the best I could, stay out of trouble and progress one step at a time. The car is still tricky to drive but our pace overall was good. I know I’ve got the race craft on lock. I just need to work on my qualifying!

That said, tomorrow we start third. That is obviously a much better place to be lining up than we were today. We should be looking to fight to hold that position. We know it will be difficult to hold the McLarens behind. They are a little further back though, so we will be doing our best to do that. We will be giving it everything we’ve got as always. Congratulations to Max too on his third world championship, he has driven a great season and it is a well-deserved achievement. It would be great if we could be in a fight with him tomorrow.

It was a very hard Sprint today. We didn't have any data on long runs so we decided to start on the Softs to try and gain some places at the start and then manage the tyres to defend our position. I managed to get a very good start and for the first few laps it looked like we could fight at the front. Unfortunately, we started losing too much due to graining compared to our rivals who were on Mediums and sixth was the best we could hold on to.
We’ve learned important things for tomorrow and, even though it’s going to be a very challenging race for us, we’ll push until the end to get some more points.

We capitalised on everyone’s difficulties today and this resulted in a point, which is now two points following Charles’ penalty, so I’m very happy! We took a gamble with set-up, and we made it work, so I think it came down to good strategy and some good fortune. We’re going to be in a good place for tomorrow, as long as the wind is low like it was in the Sprint, which it looks to be.

We prioritised tomorrow’s race with our tyre choice in tonight’s Sprint and we managed eighth after the penalty for Charles [Leclerc]. It was quite exciting with all the on-track battles, but the Soft tyres were not ideal towards the final few laps with high degradation. We don’t know how many pitstops there will be tomorrow, so we need to keep our strategy open. We’ve saved a few sets so hopefully we can maximise this and target the top five positions. Congratulations to Max [Verstappen] for his third Drivers’ Championship; he’s dominated the season and deserves it.

First of all, congratulations to Max Verstappen on winning the Championship. He deserves it, he has had a very impressive season, so credit to him on this achievement. In terms of today, it’s been a busy one for all of us. We opted for the Soft tyres in the Sprint and unfortunately it did not work out. It was a tough choice, it seems most of the grid were split on whether to go for Softs or Mediums, and in the end, I thought we did a good job to finish close to the top eight, just behind Fernando [Alonso] and the Ferraris who were in a similar position to us. Tomorrow is going to be a challenging race with what we have learnt so far this weekend. We need to carefully assess ours and others’ tyre choice and find the best strategy for the race. I feel there could be big opportunities tomorrow and we will give it our all to be in the mix for a strong result.

Today has been an interesting day: we learnt that we have decent race pace, which allowed us to fight with those around us and, although we didn’t get into the top eight, we gained a couple of positions on track, giving us confidence ahead of tomorrow’s main race. I was happy to be on the medium tyres, as the softs seemed to be dropping off quite a lot; unfortunately, I think the last Safety Car lasted a couple of laps too long, and therefore we couldn’t try and build something up in the final stages of the Sprint. Still, tomorrow we’ll be starting from a more favourable position, within the top ten, so we’ll hopefully get to build on today’s pace and get a more realistic shot at a points finish.

Today wasn’t the easiest day, but that seems to be the case on Sprint Saturdays. I apologise to the team for the track limit violation and my radio communication in SQ1. We didn’t maximise the performance during the Sprint Shootout, so I’m pretty frustrated. As for the Sprint race, the first lap was difficult, especially with the wind, but we focused on collecting data, taking care of the car, and bringing it home. We learned a lot of things for tomorrow, and we’re starting close to the points, so we’ll refocus and try to extract the most out of the car. Track limits seem difficult, and tyre management will be tricky, but we have a couple of things in our back pocket, so hopefully, we can maximise on that and score points tomorrow.

It was an interesting Sprint. I didn’t have any new Soft tyres left after Qualifying and the Shootout, so we went out on a used set, which was a bit more challenging in terms of management. This could give us an advantage in tomorrow’s race as the Medium compound seemed strong today and we have an extra set compared to our competitors who already used theirs in the Sprint. If we take care of the Softs, they can be good too, so it should be an interesting race.

On my side, it’s a new track and I found it a little more difficult to learn than I had hoped. It’s actually a pretty tricky circuit to drive and not having been to it before, it’s taken me a while to get on top of it. So, there’s a lot more lap time to find from me. It’s a long weekend ahead still, but of course disappointed with P19, but we’ll try and do better in the next session.

It’s been a busy race for us and we were in a lot of the action. There was very little grip out there, but our pace on mediums was quite good and we were doing pretty well, closing in on Lance [Stroll]. When the last Safety Car came out, we tried to roll the dice with the softs and split the strategy compared to Valtteri, but that didn’t really work – the degradation on soft was just too much. All in all, we learnt a lot for tomorrow: starting from P20 will be challenging but we can only go forward. I know what we need to do: overtaking won’t be easy, especially if DRS trains form, but if we can get some clean air we can use our good pace to make up some ground.

It was a tough Sprint race today. The temperatures were extremely hot and we had really high tyre degradation out on track. The opening few laps were fairly good and I managed to pass Valtteri [Bottas] during that phase, but I was losing the grip quickly after that so we couldn’t make much more progress. We chose to box during the third Safety Car and put on a set of used Softs, but we were running out of laps and Yuki [Tsunoda] was defending hard. We’re taking a lot more data into tomorrow’s race, so we’ll review that tonight and see what’s possible.

Firstly, I want to congratulate Max [Verstappen] on his title today. He has been more than impressive this season and it is thoroughly deserved. What he has achieved is an inspiration for all of us and it is an honour to race alongside him for all these years now. On our side, we had a good start to the race, moving up three positions with some good battles in the first few laps. We slowly started dropping back with the heavy degradation on the Softs and our race ended prematurely when we found ourselves side by side with Sergio [Perez] and Nico [Hulkenberg] into Turn 2. I felt contact on my rear right tyre and ended up in the gravel. An unfortunate racing incident. We now look ahead to tomorrow where we’ll look to collect some valuable points in the Grand Prix.

Today, the speed in SQ1 was there, but unfortunately, I made a mistake during my last lap, took too much kerb, and my lap time got deleted. My apologies to the team, because they did a really good job and worked hard overnight to make a big step forward from yesterday. On lap 1 of the Sprint race, the biggest thing was the sand offline. I had a bad start on the dirty side of the track, but then I went into Turn 1 on the racing line, had a strong corner, and made up a few places. In Turn 2, I went offline and lost the rear very quickly. I’m massively sorry to the team, because with everything that happened in the race, we maybe could’ve scored some points today, but my mistake cost us. The car seems okay, and going into tomorrow, I’ll learn from what happened today. The tyre degradation was quite high so it will be a tough, long race, but I’ll look at the data tonight and apply it tomorrow.

I asked for too much when I turned in off the entry curb and the rear went super light. A silly mistake but the positive is that I’ve been driving well all weekend. The pace has been good, and we’ll carry that into tomorrow and try to have a good Grand Prix. So, that’s the plan and I’m looking forward to having another go in a better starting position on the grid.

It was hectic in a way, but ultimately not good enough or fast enough, we lacked a bit of pace and balance. Obviously, during a Sprint there isn’t a lot of practice so we couldn’t play with the car or the set-up as much as I or the team would’ve liked. Tomorrow, we have qualifying straight away in different conditions, when it’s much hotter. It will be a bit of a surprise, a mixed bag of what we’re going to get, so we just need to be on our toes and react quickly.

Firstly, very well done to Max, he has done a tremendous job and he worked really hard for this, together with all the Team, I am very happy for them. The way Max has driven this year has to be one of the best Championship seasons in the history of the sport, he has driven at a different level. He has been outstanding, and he deserves all the success and credit he gets. It was a shame for me today, I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time and there was nothing I could really do unfortunately, I ended up taking a lot of damage to my car. It was a frustrating afternoon because I believe we had the pace to go all the way to good points. I need to recover for tomorrow, do as best as possible and come back strong.