Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

I’m satisfied with my lap today. This is a track I’ve always felt comfortable on and I’ve been happy with the feeling in the car from the start of the weekend. We barely changed anything from FP1 in terms of set-up, which is quite rare, and I knew that the confidence was there.
Tomorrow will be a long race and tyre management will be key, so we will focus on that and give it our all to bring home another victory for our team.

I’m happy to be starting P2. This track rewards commitment, and on the last lap I knew I had a lot less to lose, so I was trying to maximise the potential of the car to get the most out of it, and I think I did. I got a bit closer to the walls than I might have liked, but I’m very happy with my performance in Q3. We can be very optimistic from where we’re starting. Our pace is good – but that Ferrari is not slow either, so it should be a very exciting race. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow.

It was a solid qualifying in which I was able to build up confidence as the session went on. Q1 was a bit messy but a smoother Q2 helped, ahead of the final two runs in Q3. On the last attempt I made a mistake in sector 2 and paid the price, but overall we are in a good spot to fight tomorrow with both cars.
Now we'll prepare ourselves thoroughly for the race. A good start and especially tyre management are going to be key. Let's race!

I have mixed emotions after qualifying, I think P2 was possible, but I lost a little bit in sector two and couldn’t put my perfect lap together, I also think Ferrari were super strong today. We are on a very different strategy when it comes to downforce levels to most of the grid, we will see if that helps us tomorrow, definitely on the first stint I should be strong. From there it will be down to the amount of progress I am able to make and then, it will be head down and hopefully we are able to be strong in the race. As long as we are in the mix for the victory it should be a good weekend. I like this circuit, I have always done well here but I think it’s more that we are in a much better window than we have been for most of the season. The team is pushing in the right direction, we have a clear development direction and hopefully we can make another step for Singapore because we still need more.

I was pretty happy with my laps in Qualifying. They all felt strong but unfortunately, we didn’t quite have the pace to fight for pole position. We topped the times in FP3, but we knew that this flattered us a little bit, having run right at the very end of the session. We thought we would be in a battle just outside of the top three. It is therefore a little frustrating to be half-a-tenth from P3 but P5 isn’t a bad place to start from.

Ferrari are typically quick at street circuits and that proved to be the case once again today. I don’t think we will be able to race them for victory tomorrow but hopefully we are in the battle for the podium.

We made some final changes going into qualifying, so this might have tipped things over the edge unfortunately. As soon as I went out into Q1, I felt that the car became a bit more difficult to drive, which was a shame as you want to always have the perfect set up. On a street circuit you need to be comfortable and confident to be able to attack corners and it is harder to do this when the car is a bit more unpredictable. We tried to find solutions throughout qualifying and my lap in Q2 was good but my Q3 could definitely have been better. I hit the kerb and it was the worst time it could have happened, which was a shame. There was a balance disconnect and we are working and fine tuning that so we can optimise the car ahead of tomorrow. From last week, we have improved the car and it would have been nice to have been on the front row. We will see what happens tomorrow: it is not ideal starting from P6 and the Ferraris are always quick around here, but the cars looked quite close today.

It was an exciting Qualifying session for us with a few surprises. The lap here in Baku is very high adrenaline and you take a huge level of risk. We just made it through in Q1 and I was a little pessimistic heading into the next session. The car felt better in Q2 and the lap was very rewarding. In the end I think we have to be quite pleased with eighth position for tomorrow and we’ll start ahead of both Williams cars who look quite fast here. We can’t be overconfident though, because we’ve struggled a bit in general over the course of the weekend. We’ll need to be quite defensive tomorrow and see if we can score some points.

To achieve Q3 in only my second Qualifying session in F1 is an amazing feeling for me and the team. I was not expecting to go into Q3 as I was just going session by session building up throughout. The car has been on point so far this weekend and I’ve been getting more comfortable with the car and learning a new track. I think we maximised almost every run we did today. We had a difficult start yesterday, but we’ve done a great job to turn it around. It was important to build my confidence up after the crash in FP1 especially at a street track. My mistake in FP1 meant I couldn’t do a long run which could hurt me tomorrow, but I think we can do our prep tonight and understand where I can improve.I’m proud of what we’re already achieving together as this is only the start with plenty of races left. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.

We’ve had three Q3’s in a row now which is a positive, and getting both cars through to Q3 is good. The car is performing well and the upgrade is working. Funnily enough, I’m actually not that happy with the car this weekend but that’s a positive sign as it shows there’s even more to come and we are still good on race pace. With the issue with the fan in Q3, these things happen. Nobody did it on purpose and the team will review what happened, but realistically I was only going to gain one, maybe two positions if everything went perfectly and we can still fight from the top ten tomorrow.

It was a tough session. I was firstly lucky to get into Q2 because there was a double yellow out there which I lost a lot of time with, but I managed to scrape through. We were really on the limit to get into Q3 if it wasn’t for the mistake I made in the castle section. I’m quite disappointed in myself, not necessarily for qualifying but for FP3 where I lost a lot of laps and experience. I felt really comfortable in the car yesterday on my high-fuel run, so I have high hopes for tomorrow.

It’s frustrating to drop out at Q2. It’s not what we expected in terms of performance. We were lacking pace and it was quite difficult to drive, but we gave it our all. Tyre degradation seems trickier than usual compared to previous years, so it seems like tyre management will be key tomorrow. The new floor is definitely working here compared to Monza, it feels completely different; the team have done a great job in analysing the data. Other tracks might be a different story, but the next few tracks will be similar to this one, so I’m excited for that. We’ll keep digging into the performance, but we’ll keep calm and do what we can do tomorrow.

I think some other teams found a bit more pace out there than us, and it’s all about very fine margins once again in the midfield. On my side, I didn’t find enough lap time on that last run in Q2, I was struggling a bit in sector two to find the love and the harmony. We aimed for a better position but in Q2 we didn’t find enough improvement on the second set of new tires, hence we are where we are.

That was a difficult session. We were off the pace and struggling both for grip and balance, so we’ve got more work to do to understand why that was. It’s disappointing, but we’ll see how we go in the race tomorrow. Hopefully some opportunities come our way.

Qualifying was close today. I went in a bit deep at turn four which compromised my exit, so there was some time left on the table there. Otherwise, the lap didn’t feel too bad, and I was surprised we were out in Q1. It was very tight over one lap between everyone, which is unusual for such a long lap at a street circuit. Any Q1 exit is frustrating, but it’s such small margins around here. However, it’s possible to overtake at this circuit. Even seeing the F2 race today, there were opportunities, so that brings us optimism. We’ll try to pick it up for tomorrow, it’s a race where you can make something happen.

It’s frustrating to be knocked out of Qualifying in Q1 but there was nothing I could do. I was shown a yellow flag and slowed down, which ended my chances of getting a lap in. Until then the pace looked good, and we wouldn’t have had a problem getting into Q2. Frustrating, but now we look ahead to tomorrow and see where we can maximise the result. This isn’t the easiest track to overtake at, but opportunities often present themselves in Baku. We’ll work hard tonight and see what we can do tomorrow.

It’s been another rather difficult qualifying session. We tried everything we could, even with teamwork: I got a nice tow from Zhou, which shows that he's a real team player, but unfortunately it still wasn't enough to get into Q2. We weren’t that far off from making the cut, although the lap itself wasn't quite perfect because of Turn Five. Apart from that, however, it was a clean one, and I think we also got it right with timing and strategy. Ultimately, we just weren't fast enough to make it to Q2 today. As always, though, tomorrow is a new day, and anything can happen in Baku.

We knew I would be facing a penalty for Sunday, forcing me to start from the back of the grid, so we aimed to optimise the team’s overall result. My goal was to give Valtteri a slipstream to help him get as close as possible to Q2, which we practiced in FP3. However, this meant sacrificing my own performance, as my best lap was set on tyres that were two and a half laps old. Still, we need to improve our overall performance and move further forward to be in the mix. Looking ahead to tomorrow’s race from our current grid position – and knowing how unpredictable things can be in Baku – there may be opportunities to progress and gain some positions. We’ll need to be at our best to capitalise on them.

I’m pretty satisfied with the outcome of today’s Qualifying performance. It is obviously a pity that a minor fuel flow infringement means we are disqualified from the session. In any case, we expected to find it tough to reach Q2 as the car has been tricky all weekend, which has shown on the timesheets throughout Practice. I was very pleased with my laps in Qualifying and, even if the result doesn’t look spectacular, it was one of our most complete sessions of the season. The car has been sliding a lot, generally lacking rear grip, and we managed to improve that with some changes. We will have to stay calm in the race tomorrow and aim to be in the mix at the end. It’s usually a tough one here for racing and a lot can happen so we will give it our all from the back.

It’s not been a good weekend so far on my side. We had issues in Free Practice 1 and then in Free Practice 3 earlier today, which has really impacted our time on track. As a result, we’ve not had our usual preparation going into Qualifying so we entered it on the back foot. We could not get the car in the right window on set-up so I really had to push as much as I could to find some lap-time. On my last run we were improving a little – probably not enough to progress – and I tapped the wall. We will try to make the most of every opportunity tomorrow as it’s usually eventful at this track.

Qualifying was disappointing as we had a good day yesterday and I thought we could be in the fight for the front two rows. Unfortunately, I was struggling to get the tyres working and that is what it is all about. We will analyse why that was as a team and hopefully make improvements moving forward.

The aim is to move forward tomorrow, and I am staying positive that we can do so. It is not always easy to progress here, but we have a slightly different tyre strategy to others which may help us. We will also have to look after the tyres as it is easy to suffer with the rears. If we can do so, then hopefully we can have a better day than we had today.