Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

It feels good to be back on pole today! Testing was really good and then this weekend was a bit more tricky for us; it was difficult to get the balance of the car right due to the tricky conditions with the wind being quite strong. Heading into qualifying, no one knew where we all stood and it was very tight, but this is exciting for the sport. We made some good improvements on the car and also improved performance from FP3 to qualifying and in Q3 we had a little bit more grip. Ultimately, I am pleased with the performance of the car and was happy to be back competing again today. Looking to tomorrow, I have a good feeling and am confident ahead of the race. We know it is about looking after the tyres in the best way possible as anything can happen in the race. We have a good race car and hopefully we can show the same performance as we did today.

It was a good qualifying after what has been quite a tricky weekend. We tried a few things in the free practice sessions and I found the sweet spot in qualifying. We went out on a set of used tyres at first in Q3 which compromised our rhythm a bit, before switching to a new set but overall, it feels like we are in a better place than we were at the start of last year.
We have to wait and see where we stand in terms of race pace and Red Bullstill seem to be a step ahead of the rest of the pack. I'll take any opportunity we have.

Jeder im Werk hat großartige Arbeit geleistet, um Lewis und mir ein Auto zu geben, mit dem wir viel zufriedener sind. Das ist eine Basis, auf der wir aufbauen können. Wir haben noch einiges aufzuholen, um ganz vorne mitzufahren, aber Startplatz drei ist eine gute Ausgangsposition für das morgige Rennen. Es ist klar, wie eng es zwischen einer Reihe von Teams zugeht, darunter wir, Ferrari, McLaren und Aston Martin. Es ist aufregend zu wissen, dass, wenn man die ganze Runde zusammenbekommt und ein oder zwei Zehntel findet, das mehrere Positionen in der Startaufstellung ausmachen kann. Seit dem Test hat das gesamte Team unglaublich hart an der Feinabstimmung des Setups und an Verbesserungen gearbeitet. Wir haben eindeutig einen großen Schritt nach vorne gemacht, was unsere Pace auf einer schnellen Runde angeht. Hoffentlich haben wir unsere Rennpace dadurch nicht beeinträchtigt, aber das werden wir morgen sehen. Ich denke, dass wir in einem engen Kampf um die Podiumsplätze hinter Verstappen liegen werden.

It was a super tight session and all in all it hasn’t been a bad first qualifying for the season. In Q3 we were not able to really put everything together, but we are in a decent spot for tomorrow’s race in P4.
After testing we are confident that we have improved our race pace compared to the beginning of last year, so I’m looking forward to finally going at it tomorrow and finding out where we are on pace. Let’s kick-off the season with a good one!

My lap wasn't as clean as it could have been into turn one and that means two or three places when everything is so tight is up there. It was tricky, we were learning throughout qualifying, it was the first time we had run such a light car. We didn't get the maximum because we lost a set of soft tyres for Q3 on an aborted lap in Q2, that was a negative but a positive is that the car was performing well in qualifying. We have some work to do but what matters is tomorrow, and we are on the right side of the grid so we should be able to have a strong start. A lot of teams saved the hard tyre but we saved those softs and that means we will be on different strategies out there. The target tomorrow will be to make progress and onto the podium, things are really close and it is going to be a nice battle ahead.

It was a nice surprise tonight in qualifying to finish sixth and a very good way to start the new season. We were cautious heading into the session, but we found ourselves competitive and in the end we were only a tenth away from the Ferraris in Q3.
The car felt more connected this weekend and our fine tuning was a real positive. I think it will be very close tomorrow in the race and the fine margins between us all means how we manage everything will be key. Let's see what we can do, but I'm confident heading into the race.

The car felt great all through qualifying and there’s a lot of potential. I didn’t get the best lap in at the end, but it’s a long race and there are plenty of overtaking opportunities. We’ll see what we can do to go forwards.

P8. A significant improvement on last year. I did struggle with the balance all session and felt a fair way off compared to yesterday. It came together a bit more on the last lap in Q3, but it was a bit tricky. However, going into tomorrow, I think we can be in the mix. The grid is quite tight and there isn’t much in it, so it won’t be easy, but we’ll see what we can do.

Ich hatte im Qualifying zu kämpfen, wie schon in den letzten paar Jahren. Das Auto fühlt sich wirklich gut an, aber ich bin ein wenig in eine Richtung gegangen, um meine Rennpace zu verbessern. Damit fühlte ich mich gestern nicht so wohl, also lag der Fokus darauf. Ich habe definitiv mehr Pace auf einer Runde geopfert, als ich gehofft hatte, aber ich hoffe, dass sich das morgen auszahlt. Es gibt viel zu tun, um an den vielen schnellen Autos vorbeizukommen, die vor mir starten, aber ich bin sicher, dass es Spaß machen wird. Georges Position und die Pace, die er heute gezeigt hat, sind ein echtes Highlight und ein Beweis für die Arbeit des Teams. Es zeigt, wie hart jeder über den Winter gearbeitet hat. Es ist toll für uns, ein Auto zu haben, mit dem wir kämpfen können. Das entfacht das Feuer und die Flamme in uns Fahrern neu. Was mich betrifft, so haben Bono und alle anderen heute einen großartigen Job gemacht.

At the end of last year, I still managed to put it into Q3 a few times and we knew from last season qualifying was our strength. It looks like we’ve not lost it, but we need to fix the race day issue from before. Obviously, that’s the most crucial point for us this season, and we pretty much only focused on that in testing, and also in the winter to dial-out that characteristic that we had last year. It feels better but tomorrow is the real test to see if it actually is better, so exciting times ahead.

It’s a shame we missed out on Q3 by that little, but I’m happy with my performance. We struggled a lot yesterday, especially in FP2, but the team did a fantastic job of turning things around overnight, and the car felt good today. We’re still in the process of understanding our car properly, but we’re improving in each session, so we’re happy with the progress. I think we maximised our package today, but the race is where points are scored, so we’ll focus on tomorrow and do it again. The car is in a good place in the long run, so I’m feeling confident and excited to race again!

The AMR24 felt good in Qualifying - a reflection of the work we put in over testing to configure the set up.
I had a strong flying lap in Q1 and was happy with my pace, but then got caught in some traffic at Turn 13 in my final Q2 run. That can be the difference between progressing [into Q3] or not when it's a such a tight field and every tenth matters.
Such a close pack should make for interesting race tomorrow; I'll do my best to get a good start and we'll go from there.

P15 was where we predicted we’d be today so it’s a slight reward qualifying P13. On paper, it’s mixed feelings because I feel like we did a good job and got the most out of the car but we’ve definitely got more performance in it, which isn’t a bad thing. I was excited to go out today on low fuel and feel the car light but I think tomorrow will be very close. We’ve made big improvements, but everyone has so it’s all relative. This circuit is always very close so let’s see how we go tomorrow.

I’m not too happy with my performance tonight and a bit disappointed, to be honest. I think the weekend was going steadily and we were feeling fairly confident coming into qualifying. In the end, I never felt completely comfortable and felt like there was something I was struggling with during the lap, and therefore, didn’t cross the line feeling like I’d done a good job. As for our car and pace, as you see where Yuki is, that’s where we expected to be. Tonight was the least comfortable I felt so far this weekend, but going into the race, the approach to the track and car is different, and I’ve got more confidence going into tomorrow. I think there’s still a chance for points.

For me, I can’t be happy with that, I didn’t do a good lap in qualifying. The positive thing is we feel we’ve made some progress with the car, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow in the race. I know our race pace is decent so we can be more competitive, which hopefully is the case, and if it is then it will be a very different situation to last year where we were only falling back. I’m gutted with today honestly but looking forward to Saturday.

It’s no secret that we are not where we expected to be today. As a positive, everything worked okay on our car – unfortunately, what we were lacking is a bit of single-lap performance. We already saw from the final practice session, earlier today, that getting past the Q2 threshold was going to be a tough job, as it is really close out there in the field. In terms of setup, we opted to prioritise the race more than qualifying, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll get to take advantage of that. We’ll be working on finetuning our package overnight, to try and extract something more ahead of the race.

Unfortunately, we did not achieve the result we were hoping for today. It has been a tricky and inconsistent weekend for us so far, and we didn’t manage to find the optimal setup over the last two days. We knew that we might struggle with our one-lap pace and that making it all the way to Q3 could be difficult, but we expected to be more competitive. While my lap wasn’t perfect, extracting another tenth from it would have been challenging. And although this isn’t the best start to the season, we need to focus on ourselves and find ways to extract more performance. Now, it’s about analysing the data, gaining a better understanding of our package, and taking a step forward in the race and for the upcoming weekends. Tomorrow is a new day, and we’ll give it our all to make up for the lost position today.

The first run was great but the second run wasn’t so good. I’m a little bit confused about the difference in tyre performance across the two runs; it didn’t feel like I had the tyre in the right window at all on the second set and I lost a significant amount of rear grip. It’s a little bit disappointing but at least the performance was there in the car. Nonetheless, we knew it would be very tight and that it is. It’s hard to say exactly where we are on race pace but I feel quite comfortable within myself on race pace, so hopefully we can use that to our advantage tomorrow.

We expected it was going to be difficult coming into Qualifying and that proved to be the case. It’s important that we realise where we need to improve, which is something we identified very early on with this car. As I said on the radio, I’ve got faith and confidence in the team to keep progressing. We improved the car all the way through testing and all the way through the Practice sessions so far this weekend, though, it was not quite enough to progress into the second part of Qualifying. Tomorrow will be a long race and I think we’ll be closer to the others than on short runs. We’ll look to execute a clean race, try to progress up the field and see where we end up.

We knew it would not be an easy start to the season and, of course, it’s always a tough one to take when you exit in Q1. From my side, we probably did not maximise everything today in the session. It was a very messy out lap with traffic and the tyres were not in a good window for an optimal lap time. That said, it would have been tough to advance much further. We know where we are and the team is pushing flat out and working exceptionally hard to keep bringing improvements to the car. Most importantly, we’re sticking together as a team. For tomorrow, a lot can always happen on race day. We will try and maximise everything we have in our hands and get the best from it. We’ll keep pushing all the way.