Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Even though it was a more difficult weekend, achieving pole position today was great. I didn’t really expect to make it on pole, but we kept on making steady improvements throughout qualifying and I felt able to push a little bit better. Over the weekend, we have been struggling with the graining and have had a lot of things to figure out, but we just needed to keep on fine tuning the car with the Team. The balance of the car got better throughout; as we went through the session it felt easier to manage and I'm very happy with the laps we did in Q3 and surprised myself. We obviously had all the information from Q1 and Q2 and I think we achieved two very good laps. It is a bit of an unknown tomorrow as it is always easy to make a mistake here and it is harder to manage the tyres. Although the weekend has been a bit tough for us and I don’t think tomorrow will be an easy race, to still be on pole with the difficulties that we had is something we can be very proud of.

From missing the race in Jeddah to this P2 in two weeks, it’s been an interesting journey to say the least! I’m very happy because coming to Australia I wasn’t even sure I was going to make it. We have managed to progress steadily session after session, knowing that the target was to arrive as prepared as possible for qualifying. I tried everything to get pole in the last lap but it’s impossible to be disappointed with today’s result given the circumstances.
Hopefully the body holds on during the entire race. As long as I have no pain and with the extra motivation from today, I will fight to get a good result tomorrow.

I’m happy with today. I think we made a good turnaround. I’ve been struggling a little bit all weekend with balance. We changed quite a bit going into today and made some good steps forward, so I’m now feeling much happier. I felt like I got a bit more comfortable with the car, and as soon as that happens, I can roll-out some speed. So, a big thanks to everyone here at track and back in Woking for their help overnight. A good day, a good position and hopefully we can transfer it into good points tomorrow.

I just didn’t find the right feeling today, starting from FP3. In qualifying, the front wasn’t as strong as I wanted, so I went aggressive with the front wing on my last run and ultimately, it didn’t work out.
With a good start, and if I get past Lando (Norris), we can focus on fighting the cars in front together with Carlos. The race is long and there are 4 DRS zones at this track, so overtaking is possible. Let’s see what we can bring home tomorrow.

P6 [5th following Pérez's penalty] in quali. A decent session, I probably peaked a bit early! Felt like Q2 was very strong and then just didn’t quite replicate it in Q3. So, I’ve got mixed feelings. I think the car had good pace and I think we’ve shown that we’ve got good race pace, so we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.

It was quite tricky out there; I think that soft tyre was making things very difficult for us and getting up to speed on that set is quite hard but in the end it really worked well and we were able to extract the maximum from the tyre. I didn’t get the maximum from my final lap and lost a tenth at turn one, I think P2 was achievable, but I am still pleased with P3, I am on the clean side of the grid and can fight from there. This is a good starting point, I am confident, I want to get a strong start and get Carlos off the line. The degradation is a lot higher than last year here, it will be a challenge with Ferrari and it will come down to strategy and management of the tyres. Hopefully we get the result we want, that would be very nice for the Team.

Das war heute nicht das Qualifying, das wir uns erhofft hatten. Es war schwierig, die Reifen in das richtige Fenster zu bekommen, und es ist so eng da draußen, dass ein paar Zehntel einen großen Unterschied ausmachen können. Das Auto fühlte sich im FP3 stark an, aber leider ließ sich dieses Gefühl nicht ganz auf den Nachmittag übertragen. Wir wissen, wo wir das Auto verbessern müssen, und das ist in den Hochgeschwindigkeitskurven. Leider gibt es davon hier in Melbourne eine ganze Menge, so dass diese Strecke definitiv nicht zu unseren Stärken passt. Ich denke aber, dass wir morgen besser dastehen werden, wenn jeder mehr Benzin im Tank hat. Es gibt auch noch viele Unbekannte vor dem Rennen. Niemand ist bisher mit den harten Reifen gefahren, und das wird die Reifenmischung sein, die während des Rennens hauptsächlich zum Einsatz kommt. Wir könnten auch etwas Graining sehen. Ich denke, es wird ein spannenderes Rennen werden, als wir es normalerweise hier sehen. Und letztendlich werden die Punkte bekanntlich erst im Grand Prix vergeben.

I’m very happy with the performance of the team and myself. Definitely a big credit to them for giving me a very consistent car throughout the weekend. It’s been easier to adapt and build confidence in every session, so I definitely feel like I had a clean lap, was able to squeeze a few milliseconds from each corner, and maximised the performance. I didn’t expect P8, and especially Q3 after seeing Williams and other teams find more time in Q1, but I’m very happy; it’s the highest qualifying position this season and reflects the hard work of the team. Daniel was also looking quick so it’s a bit of a shame what happened, but let’s see how it goes tomorrow. It won’t be easy, but we aim to have a clean race, do as much as we can, and score points!

We had strong Q1 and Q2 sessions today: the car was performing well and I found a decent rhythm. I then had a bit of a moment at Turn Nine in Q3 and lost three or four tenths. It had been a good lap up until then, so I think we could have been looking at a couple of positions higher up if it hadn't been for that wobble. Tomorrow is going to be a high-degradation race, so I think it's all about managing tyres. We have a good race car and it's a fun track to drive so strong points will be the target tomorrow.

Getting both cars into Q3 was more or less what we expected today. My first lap in Q3 wasn't great: I went off into the gravel at Turn Six. My mistake. So, on my final push-lap, I didn't really have full confidence in the car. It was tricky. I feel we are a little bit less competitive than we were in Jeddah. The car was sliding; a little sensitive in the wind; lacking consistency. But it's the same for everybody. Still, we need to find more pace. There will be lots going on tomorrow. It's not going to be an easy race for the tyres – graining will be a concern for everybody – so let's see if we can manage them better than the others. We want to get both cars home in the points tomorrow.

Das Auto fühlte sich im FP3 klasse an. Es war viel besser als gestern und wir waren ganz vorne mit dabei. Im Qualifying kamen dann aber leider wieder die Ungereimtheiten im Auto zum Vorschein. Normalerweise nimmt der Wind hier am Nachmittag zu, und ich denke, dass wir heute darunter gelitten haben, ähnlich wie wir im FP2 damit zu kämpfen hatten. Das Auto agiert auf des Messers Schneide, und als Fahrer ist es schwierig, diese Ungereimtheiten zu umgehen. Das ist im Moment für niemanden im Team ein gutes Gefühl, aber wir werden weiter hart arbeiten. George hat heute einen guten Job gemacht, um das Auto ins Q3 zu bringen. Ich werde mich darauf konzentrieren, morgen zurückzukommen und zu versuchen, einen besseren Job zu erledigen.

No one wants to go racing like this, I don’t want to go racing like this. It’s one thing to make a mistake in FP1 and then back it up and try and deliver in Qualifying but to be in this situation, I take that responsibility on, and the significance is not lost on me. It’s tough but now the only thing I can do is focus on my job, put it behind me and treat it like a normal weekend. Obviously, I’m a session down, but that’s all I could do and so far, I think we’ve done a good job. The ultimate pay back I can give to the team and Logan is to now go fighting for points.

Making it into Q2 for the first time this season is surely a positive – especially in Australia, a circuit where track position is crucial. Starting closer to the top ten tomorrow should allow us to be in the battle to hopefully score a point or two, as we know we can be fighting with the cars around us. Generally, I feel like we’ve made a small step forward as a team and, given that the field is quite tight, even slight improvements can make a big difference. The reprofiled front wing definitely helped with the car balance and grip and we’ve seen an overall better performance compared to the previous two races. I’m looking forward to racing in front of a fantastic crowd tomorrow – it’s great to feel all the love and support, which gives me quite a boost. Melbourne is always a fantastic race that can be quite action-packed; I’ll give it my all to make the fans happy and put a great performance together.

There were some good laps in qualifying today so I think that’s about where we are with the car, in qualifying at least. P14, it’s still within reach of the top 10 and I think we just have to have a clean race and hope that tire degradation is on our side tomorrow. Degradation seemed okay, it’s whether our outright race pace is good enough, which is the bigger question. Hopefully we can tune it up for points as that’s what we’re here for.

We’re progressing in the right direction, but we cannot be satisfied with the result and where we are right now. The car was the best it’s felt since the start of the season and we extracted the most we could. I pushed the limits today - and more - clipping the wall at the final corner on my first run in Q1. I was fortunate not to pick up any damage and we could turn the car around quickly. We kept pushing to the end and managed to progress through to the next part of Qualifying. That was really the maximum today, but we’re aware we still need to find some performance to make that next step. We’ve seen that a lot can happen here in the race, and as we’ve seen in the past, if you stay out of trouble, you can seize opportunities to move up the field.

I got held up on my first run by Perez which wasn’t ideal, and then my second lap wasn’t clean. The lap was looking promising until the exit of Turn 7 when the wind changed and I lost a bunch of time just from that different wind direction. I then lost the front tires for the rest of the lap and didn’t manage to improve enough. We’re all very close in the midfield so we’ll see, but the graining we’ve seen this weekend maybe offers some interesting options and potential tomorrow, so either way I’m looking forward to it.

We were having a fairly decent session up until my final run in Qualifying. It felt like we had a small downshift issue on the lap, so there’s certainly some frustration not to be in Q2 today. The laps across Q1 were good up until the lap, which matters most at the end. We are still far from where we want to be – some things are not going our way – and there is lots of analysis ahead of us. Still, we tried to maximise the car in tricky conditions and we just have to keep improving our understanding of what we have in our hands. It won’t be an easy race with tyre degradation. Maybe there will be some opportunities and we’ll give it our best for the best possible result.

I knew in Turn 4 I was sliding and fighting to put the car on the limit, and in that lap, I washed a little bit wider. I knew I used more kerb than I wanted on the exit, but I wasn’t sure whether it would be off track or not. I had already forgotten about it by Turn 5 and 6 until I came into the garage and Pierre told me the lap was deleted. The team put in a big effort after the weekend in Saudi and we also brought some new parts here which looked better. When I crossed the line, I felt like I gave it all I had and got all I could out of it. I was happy with the lap but I’m a little skeptical because of where we are in terms of the stopwatch, as we were still slow with that lap. I have done enough laps in quali over the years to know where I am, and I think we’re still missing some things. We’ve been facing some struggles all weekend, but it’s not anything in particular; I feel the car and I’m comfortable with it, with the balance and the braking and that's why the grid position is really painful. Tomorrow will be a long race, probably it’s a two-stop one, so perhaps this will give us a bit more opportunities. I feel like I’ve got a little bit of my anger out of something, so probably something in my driver room will get broken and then I’ll feel better.

Today’s qualifying has been a difficult one for me: my last lap was going quite well, but then I felt a strong loss of downforce in the last sector before realising that I lost part of my front wing. It’s quite unfortunate, as I feel I would have comfortably made it into Q2; now I’ll have to make up more than expected during tomorrow’s race to be up there fighting for points. While my last qualifying sessions haven’t been the luckiest ones, our race pace has felt quite good, and you never know what’s going to happen at this track. I am looking forward to racing in front of a great crowd and hopefully climb up the order.