Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

The start was key for us today: it was good to get the lead into turn one and it was important to keep the first few laps under control. Tyre management is incredibly difficult here because of the high degradation and I really had to look after them right from the beginning of the race. You can’t go flat out as it is a very long stint on the tyres, so you do need to pick your moments. Ultimately, I am happy with how we managed the tyres and we have had some successful Sprint races this year, which is positive. We will all learn a lot from today. Lando was also very close to me for the duration of the race so I expect it will be an even closer result tomorrow.

It was good fun today. My initial start was good but the second phase of the launch was maybe a little bit on the safe side. These are things to improve for tomorrow but nevertheless the pace was strong as we got into the race. I tried to go after Max – but just didn't have enough.
I’m encouraged with how good our pace was today. We didn’t expect to be fighting Max at a track which doesn’t suit our car as much, so overall I'm pleased with my performance today. Tomorrow I’ll try to work my way through the field again and work hard to secure good points for the team.

It is definitely a good result, but I would have liked to have had a better start and have been in contention for first. We had a terrible start and first lap, losing position to both Mercedes so that meant things were not as we wanted, we had to push hard and I had to make use of my tyres early on, so I ended up paying the price later on in the race. Tomorrow is the main race, and everyone is going to learn from the Sprint, we expect a very high tyre deg, so everything is going to suffer, the engine, the brakes… It will be all about looking after the tyres, it will be a long race with a lot of competition but the race pace of the car should be good and the podium is my target.

I had a good first lap but after that, it was a struggle. We expected the tyre degradation to be less than it turned out to be. We certainly didn’t expect to be outright quickest, but we were surprised by the pace delta to those ahead. That all came down to the tyres. Sometimes we seem to be able to get them to work, other times we struggle. It’s a shame but we clearly got it wrong today where others didn’t. We need to rectify that for tomorrow.

The track will be a little bit cooler on Sunday which may swing things more into our favour. We will obviously learn things from today too and make some changes. It’s likely to be at least a two-stop race, but I’m not as optimistic heading into tomorrow’s Grand Prix as I was this morning.

We did a good job today and there was not much more on the cards. Not using new tyres for qualifying, preferring to keep them for the GP on Sunday, we knew we would be on the back foot for the Sprint. We did well anyway, finishing in P5 and getting ahead of Lewis (Hamilton), who qualified on a new set of Softs this morning. They are our main competitors for this year so it’s a good sign to be able to fight with them.

First of all, a big congrats to the team! Yesterday wasn’t our day, but together, we made a big comeback today. Qualifying P16 yesterday for the Grand Prix and P6 today for the Sprint race shows a big step in the right direction. The car was fun to drive, but we have to understand why there was such a difference between yesterday and today. There were a couple of places where I could improve my driving, and I think the last lap in SQ3 was my best lap so far, which allowed me to start in a good position for the Sprint race. We maximised our opportunity, finishing P6, which is the highest position so far this season. With a couple more laps, I might’ve been able to fight for P5 with Leclerc ahead of us. I’m happy with my race craft today, and the pace the car had, especially in the race, was strong. Daniel also had good pace, so it was a big team effort. Well done to the team because, without their hard work, I wouldn’t have been in that position. Now I’m looking forward to racing again tomorrow. We’re in a good rhythm now, so we’ll build on it and bring even more performance into tomorrow. It won’t be easy because we’re starting further back, but we know our car is good, so we’ll overtake as much as possible, with points being possible.

That was not an enjoyable race. We made a good start and managed to gain a position on Sergio Perez. After that though, we really struggled with the balance. We had a lot of understeer, then snap oversteer, and I was fighting the car from very early on. By the closing stages, I had run out of grip on the tyres, and I can only assume that we got the setup wrong. We will need to find a way to make some changes for tomorrow. I suspect it will be a long afternoon if we aren’t able to make improvements. I will of course be fighting as hard as I can, and trying to manage the tyres a bit better than we were able to today.

Today we suffered more than expected in the Sprint. Our main limitation came from having to manage the engine temperatures and the tyres. This implied a lot of lift and coast from very early on in the race, which obviously affected our overall performance. However, I'm confident that tomorrow it will be better and that we’ll be able to push the car and the tyres more to recover some positions.

Today felt a lot better, and what I felt was possible yesterday. Looking back, my qualifying lap yesterday was mostly my fault because I didn’t make it count when it needed to. On the medium tyre, especially in SQ2, it was going really well, and I was very happy with that lap. On the soft compound, I struggled in Turn 1 and 2 again, though not as much as yesterday, and I was a little disappointed with my final lap. As a team, P6 and P8 is a good result for us.
The Sprint race certainly wasn’t boring. On one hand, it was nice to be in a battle, and I had fun out there, but I’m also really frustrated. As we showed this morning by having both cars in the top 8, we definitely had the pace to score points, so congratulations to Yuki who did. Every time I passed Carlos in Turn 1, he overtook me with the DRS afterwards. I'm also frustrated with myself for leaving the door open to Oscar, who passed me in Turn 8. Strategically, I can perform better moves tomorrow. Some things changed throughout the race, probably also because of the asphalt we have here, but I think I did well by adapting my driving style mid-race. In fact, we gained a lot from Carlos (Sainz) during the last couple of laps. Unfortunately, by the chequered flag, we were still behind by a couple tenths. Looking at the positive, I think it’s exciting to see the forward steps we've taken with the car. I also learnt some things during the race, and I'll keep them in my back pocket for tomorrow. We’ll watch the replays and figure out how to plan my overtakes better, trying to find a bit more clear air and use that pace.

P10 today, there was some good racing out there but I struggled with tyre degradation from all the battling. Other than that, it was a fun race around a good circuit. We managed to get some important learning done ahead of tomorrow which will certainly help us in the Grand Prix. We’ll work to see what we can do in the race and hope to score positive points.

It was a fun Sprint today with a lot of wheel-to-wheel racing. Unfortunately, we didn’t score any points after climbing a few positions, but the car felt competitive so that is a good sign for tomorrow. We’ve felt more competitive this weekend and it’s going in the right direction. It will be close in the race tomorrow and we know there are a number of fast cars around us, so let’s see if we can score some big points.

That was a fun race. We didn’t get a break in qualifying this morning, and I feel we started out of position, but then we could overtake a lot of cars this afternoon. The car really felt good today; it felt like I was always able to attack the cars in front. We also learnt quite a lot about the car, balance and the tyres – all things we can take into tomorrow’s race, and we’ll start from a much better position. All credit to everybody in the team for working so hard to get the car into this position. Tomorrow’s race will be long and unpredictable, but I think we can have some fun out there.

There is not much to report from today after starting from thirteenth and finishing in thirteenth. I made a good start, managed to overtake two cars, and then we were in the chasing pack for the lower end of the points. I tried to stay in that group but then it became more difficult towards the end of the race particularly with rear grip and overheating tyres. I had some fun fighting Fernando [Alonso] with some fair racing, just not for the points-scoring positions. We can learn a couple of things ahead of tomorrow’s race. It could be an interesting one and we will aim to identify a good strategy to put ourselves in contention to score some points.

First of all I want to give a big shout out to the entire team in the garage for their heroic work on the car to get it ready in time for the Sprint Race. They had to replace pretty much everything other than the engine and the chassis so a big well done and thank you to them. After the unfortunate incident in the Shootout, we started sixteenth today so we gained a couple of places during what was a tough but straightforward race. We had a couple of good overtakes but perhaps lacked the speed compared to the Astons, who are quick here. We now shift our focus to tomorrow where we’ll need to fight our way back up to the points to finish the weekend on a high.

It was a decent race for us today, despite being at the back. The pace was reasonable but the degradation for most drivers was massive, so it feels quite terrible to drive if I’m honest. It’s a strange one as when you have that much deg, you’d think you’d just go on harder tyres, but the Hard tyres are so bad around here, with the Softs being the only tyre with reasonable grip. I think strategy is going to be quite interesting tomorrow with it ultimately being dependent on deg, so we’ll see but hopefully we’ll be okay.

I think the way we saw this race, being on the same tire as everyone else meant we weren’t going to get into the top eight, and we want points. We took a big risk, I didn’t quite expect everyone else to be on the softs, as only one Williams was also on mediums. We rolled the dice and tried something different to score points. We always learn but there’s nothing we can change on the car now, but at least we got a feeling on the medium tire and a good look at everyone else on the soft.

We made an improvement in terms of pace compared to yesterday and this morning, and we were a bit closer to our direct competitors – even if not quick enough yet to make the step up we needed. Unfortunately, I got stuck in a DRS train for most of the Sprint, and I was only able to put up a fight and gain a few positions in the closing laps. Looking ahead to tomorrow, there is still all to play for; the weekend has unfortunately been quite tricky for us so far, and starting from the back of the grid is, of course, not ideal. Still, we’ll be looking into the data gathered from the track today, in order to find that extra step of performance and maximise what we can get. We saw in the Sprint that there can be a lot of battles around here, and we are determined to get stuck in during the race.

I don’t think it would’ve mattered which tire we started on, at the end of the day our performance is too poor. We’re missing downforce compared to the others and we’re always going to pay the price for that. It’s not looking great for tomorrow, we can’t change anything overnight as we’re under parc ferme, so it’s not the best outlook.

It’s been a difficult day in which we didn’t have the pace we expected, especially towards the end of the Sprint, and it was very challenging not to slide around in the corners and overheat the tyres. It seemed our difficulties were very specific to today’s conditions, and I really hope tomorrow’s expected cooler temperatures will help us improve. My race was compromised at the start – I tried to make some gains, but got squeezed out at turn two and that cost me all momentum on the straight. We had to roll the dice in the first couple of corners, but it didn’t pay off: afterwards, it was quite a frustrating race, which felt much longer than 24 laps. Still, we don’t drop our head, we will try again tomorrow: everything can happen in Brazil and we need to give it our all.

It’s a Sprint race, so you take what you can. For sure we learnt a few things on direction for tomorrow, but we couldn’t risk the car for tomorrow, so it’s just frustrating being stuck in a DRS train. If I had clean air today, I would have had a lot of pace. Alex was able to move forward, which is positive, and I think if I’d have encountered the cars ahead individually, rather than in a DRS train, I would have been able to do the same. We just need to be able to try to find those gaps tomorrow to work our way forward. It’s not been an easy weekend for us but tomorrow looks a bit cooler, which should suit us better, and I think we have pace advantage on quite a few cars ahead in race trim, so we have 71 laps to take advantage of that.