Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

It feels good to be starting at the front of the grid. It isn't the easiest track on which to defend the first position on the opening lap, but I will do everything to convert this to a victory for the team. The weather conditions played their part and today’s result exceeded our expectations. It feels good to be starting at the front of the grid. It isn't the easiest track on which to defend the first position on the opening lap, but I will do everything to convert this to a victory for the team. The weather conditions played their part and today’s result exceeded our expectations. Our focus will now shift to getting ready to do the same in dry conditions tomorrow. 

It is a good boost of confidence for myself and the team to be starting on the front row tomorrow. It feels good to have momentum on my side and to hopefully have a strong result ahead of summer break. We had good pace all the way through qualifying, we changed the car’s balance dramatically from yesterday to today with everything focused on race pace. We managed to get nice, solid balance out there so I’m very pleased with that. It’s going to be a long race tomorrow, if I see an opportunity early on we’ll go for it but it is going to be a different scenario with weather conditions. Tomorrow is a new opportunity, and I’m looking forward to it as I think we are in a good position to fight for the victory.

Overall, qualifying was a good session for us. We tried to predict the weather as best we could, which is a real challenge around here. In hindsight, we would have chosen to run a little later on our new set of Intermediates in Q3, but the conditions and incoming rain are so hard to forecast. Our pace was still decent on tyres that we had completed multiple push laps on so we can be pleased with our efforts today.

Tomorrow’s race will be a challenge. We’ve likely got a few quicker cars starting behind us in Verstappen and the McLarens. I will be getting my head down though, trying to hold position to them and see if I can keep up with the guys ahead of me. I will be giving it everything and hopefully the changes we’ve made overnight will help us find more pace in the dry than we had on Friday.

Mixed feelings today. I was struggling at points, and it felt like I was a little bit off the pace, which is frustrating. I think we paid the price for a slightly lower downforce, so hopefully, it comes back to us tomorrow after some work overnight. Starting P4 tomorrow keeps us in the fight and provides a great opportunity to gain positions.

They were tough conditions in Qualifying today and we felt reasonably good, we just didn’t quite get the most out of the new set of tyres in Q3. A little improvement would have made a decent difference, however, we go into tomorrow with confidence. It’s a long run through Eau Rouge and a long race ahead, so we’ve got plenty of chances to move forward and fight for the top spots.

Predicting the ever-changing weather made qualifying a real challenge today. You had to make sure you had the new Intermediate tyre on your car at the right time, and that was difficult to do. We were maybe slightly too early putting it on in Q3, but it is easy to say that with the benefit of hindsight. Starting P6 for tomorrow is therefore a fair result.

There will be a lot of unknowns going into tomorrow. The forecast is currently dry, and we will be hoping to move forward from P6. The McLarens looked fast on Friday and may be slightly quicker than us, but let’s wait and see. Tyre degradation will also play a big factor. It was some of the highest levels we have seen so far this year in FP1 and FP2. Today’s rain may also have an impact on the surface so we will have to be adaptable.

I cannot be happy with the end result today because I was fast during the entire session and I didn’t extract the maximum out of the last set of tyres in Q3. Immediately into turn 1 I felt I didn't have the same grip as I had during the previous runs and the entire lap was a struggle. I need to understand what I did differently to have such low grip.I cannot be happy with the end result today because I was fast during the entire session and I didn’t extract the maximum out of the last set of tyres in Q3. Immediately into turn 1 I felt I didn't have the same grip as I had during the previous runs and the entire lap was a struggle. I need to understand what I did differently to have such low grip.As for tomorrow, the race will be open and the goal will be to gain positions and fight at the front. It's difficult to predict what conditions we will find in the race, but I'm sure there will be opportunities. 

I am happy with ninth position in Qualifying today, which will become eighth with Max Verstappen's grid penalty, and I think it was probably the maximum we could achieve. I wasn’t feeling totally comfortable in all of the Free Practice sessions this weekend, so I wasn’t sure what to expect heading into Qualifying. The car felt good and I had confidence in these mixed weather conditions. We go into the unknown in tomorrow’s race with less knowledge of the tyre degradation and with the new asphalt too, so that will make things interesting. We have a lot of the dry tyres available, so hopefully we can push and fight for some points.

We will start tomorrow’s race from ninth place after Qualifying in tenth and reaching Q3. We brought some upgrades here in Spa, which we’ll continue to gather data for each time we’re on track. It was a good afternoon and we maximised the potential in Qualifying. The weather conditions meant that it was not easy in the wet but it was fine for us to run. In Q3 it was trickier out there as we did not have a new set of tyres. We start inside the points on Sunday, we know it will not be an easy race, however, we have given ourselves a great opportunity to score points. We need to look ahead to tomorrow, assess the conditions, where it will most likely be dry, and assess our options on strategy. We aim to take all the opportunities that might come our way.

It was a lot of fun out there today with the conditions making it a bit tricky but a joy to drive. Trying to get the rears to survive or to go flat through Eau Rouge; every lap was pushing the limits.
Whilst we were three milliseconds off Q3, I’m still happy with how the car felt and due to penalties, we’ll be starting from P10 anyway.
We’ve made a lot of changes on our car from FP3 to Qualifying, however because of the rain, we aren’t 100% sure how these changes have gone, but we’ll be looking to have a good day tomorrow and fight for points.

Today was a positive day. We were really strong, have maximised the car and have the best possible position for tomorrow. You always try and do the best lap possible; it was wet today and the conditions tomorrow will be better and I think it will all be about tyre management. Hopefully what we did today will help us with tyre management for tomorrow, and I felt more comfortable with the wing that we chose, so I hope I can come back into the fight with the other teams. There are many other fast cars out there who are really strong and I think the McLarens will be tough to beat tomorrow. Hopefully we can fight for a position with the grid place penalty and be back in the mix and I hope that we can be competitive. We hope that it won’t hurt us too much but we will see as the weather will be different, the wind will change and we will set up the car a bit differently. So we will see and we look forward to tomorrow.

It’s definitely a disappointing feeling to exit in Q2, especially after such a good Q1 where we ended second on the timesheets. We did not maximise our out laps and tyre preparation in the changing conditions and I felt like I lacked rear grip. We did not give ourselves the best chance to reach Q3 and we need to better understand how we can maximise performance. My set-up is different to the other car – focusing on corners and compromising some straight-line speed – so we will see what that brings in tomorrow’s race. It looks like it will be dry, we tried a few things in Practice in dry conditions on Friday, so hopefully it will all pay off tomorrow, where we aim to progress into the points.

Today I felt good and thought we would be better than thirteenth; I’m disappointed with this result but happy with the session and the pace we had, as I generally think we were a Q3 car. In Q2 the rain started to come down a bit more, so we chose to set the time a bit earlier in case it got worse. At the time we felt it was a good decision and we were able to improve our lap time a little bit, but it didn’t work out for us as the rain stabilised enough when we were at the garage, and everyone was able to improve. I’m comfortable with the dry conditions we’re hopefully going to have tomorrow; here it’s normally a one-stop race, but with the bad weather we had today maybe the track will have poor grip which might create a two-stop race. In this case, there might be more opportunities with the strategy.

I feel we made the most out it today – considering the unpredictable, ever-changing track conditions. We manage to put in clean laps with good timing, and the end result is pretty much an indication of where we stand at the moment. Every lap felt different, and it was quite the challenge to estimate tyre grip, but we managed to improve on the last push lap of Q2 on a new set of tyres – eventually claiming 14th on the grid. The conditions are set to be different again tomorrow, but we were able to put in a good amount of running in the dry yesterday to properly understand our setup ahead of the race, which should help us be in the mix. Tomorrow is a new opportunity to go for it, and it would be nice to finally get points before heading into the summer break. We’ve seen some unpredictable races on this track, and overall, it’s always been a pretty pace-dominated race, so let’s see what we have in store for tomorrow.

Firstly, I want to thank the team in the garage for the repair work they did to fix my car after FP3. We had to change the front corner and floor due to damage as well as the power unit and gearbox because of the heavy impact, so they did a great job working super quickly to get me back on track in time for Qualifying.   
It was a tough day out there. I struggled in Qualifying with the grip and balance of the car; it’s hard to really push when you don’t have that confidence. We’ll work through everything tonight to see if there’s any improvements we can make ahead of the race. This is a track that offers good overtaking opportunities, so we’ll be pushing hard for points.

I think our run profile was actually good, close to optimum, I don’t feel like we left anything out there. We just didn’t have the pace unfortunately, I was struggling on the intermediate, and we didn’t have the grip needed to do a better lap time. It’s been a bit of a theme this season that on the intermediates the car doesn’t feel that happy and not in the best place. We need to understand and analyze that for the future. I don’t know if others went for higher downforce for qualifying because of the rain, but if that is the case it could play into our hands, but we’ll only find out tomorrow.

I don’t think we were too far from the optimum we could do. I went out for two timed laps in the second run and the track was getting so much better that it would’ve been better to do one timed lap with new tires with the track being the best. We didn’t look as competitive in these conditions compared to the dry conditions yesterday. Our plan was for a wet session but there was almost a dry line at the end, so that didn’t work for our plan, but the performance wasn’t there.

It’s always tricky at Spa and it’s never easy in these kinds of conditions when the track is drying. A lot of it comes down to that last lap and we didn’t get one in as we didn’t get ourselves in the right position. So what could have been, nobody knows, but I’m not sure we quite had the pace today. We’ll go again tomorrow.

I feel like we definitely missed a chance in today’s qualifying session. My first run on inters wasn’t bad, and I believe I could have made it into the top 15 at that point. However, when pitting for a fresh set of tyres, the team held me in the pit lane to time our final run better and, unfortunately, this strategy didn’t work out. I ended up at the back of a train of cars heading into the final chicane, and with only one lap to optimally prepare my tyres, it was impossible to improve my time. It’s disappointing because I think we could have achieved a better result. Despite this setback, I believe we can make up some ground tomorrow, given my overall feeling today and the way the car was performing.

It wasn’t a normal qualifying for me as I have an engine penalty for tomorrow, so it was about getting a lap in and seeing how the car feels. The car is quite different from yesterday, so it was good to make sure I’m happy with everything and gather more data. Together, we’ll focus our efforts on tomorrow because overtaking won’t be easy in the race as DRS trains often form here. We’ll try to maximise the car and our strategy to make it work as a team, and hopefully score some points.