Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

I’m super happy today! I couldn’t imagine a better qualifying here in Mexico. We have done a great job balancing the car and I enjoyed very much the last two laps of Q3, pushing in every corner and keeping it as clean as possible. I feel we have improved our tyre understanding and preparation and this helps to consistently drive to the limit.We are the only team with both cars on the front two rows of the grid so the main priority for the race will be to score the maximum haul of points for the Constructors’ Championship. Even though it’s not easy at this track, I will do everything to defend pole at the start and we will give all we’ve got to bring home another win!

Today was a good recovery here in Mexico. Starting the day we knew that it was going to be difficult with no data from Friday, so FP3 was really important for us to make sure we had some references heading in to the weekend. We knew it was going to be a difficult session, we missed crucial running time yesterday, and the track was still very green when I first went out today. I just tried to do the best I can and we made some final changes in the right direction. The changes that we made, the car was more driveable, and I was able to push more. To be on the front row for tomorrow is better than expected and a great result for us. Tomorrow is a bit of an unknown, but we will give it our all in front of the fans.

I’m pretty happy with third. I feel like I got to the limit of the car quite quickly, but I struggled to get a lot more out of it in the final two laps. It’s tough to know what to expect tomorrow. None of us have done proper long runs on the tyres that we're going to be on, so there's question marks for everyone. It’s going to be tough but we're in a good position and I’m looking forward to it.

I didn’t have the feeling I wanted in the car, neither in FP3 nor in qualifying, and P4 was the best I could do today.With my driving style, I struggle a bit more on low grip tracks such as this one, but I’m confident that with the race pace I had yesterday, I can push in tomorrow’s race. I will need a really good start to challenge for the win, and starting from P4 will not make that easy, but I will give it my all.

Firstly, a big thank you to everyone in the garage for working so hard to get the car ready for today. There was extensive damage, and we had to change the chassis overnight. I am therefore happy with our recovery from yesterday. We are still running the previous specification package which we’ve had for the last 12 races, so to be less than two tenths off the front-row is a solid effort.

My final lap felt good, and I was happy with it as I crossed the line. P5 was likely the most we could have hoped for today given the speed of those in front. I don’t think we quite have the race pace of the four cars ahead but let’s see tomorrow. I also expect that they will be scrapping quite hard so maybe the race will come towards us.

The car felt good in FP3, but I didn’t have that same feeling in Qualifying. We made a few small set-up adjustments after that final practice session as we tried to find a little more speed. Unfortunately, they didn’t bring that extra lap time, and we had to settle for P6.

It’s going to be difficult to challenge the guys ahead tomorrow. They’ve looked quick, particularly the Ferraris and the McLaren of Norris. Whilst we may not be able to fight them on pure pace, we will be looking to take advantage of any chances that come our way. It is also a long run down to the first corner so making positions off the start could be the key to our race.

Two cars again in the top 10, and I think I’m ahead of the people we want to be ahead of, so that’s a good day for us. This track is very dirty on the inside of the line, so it’s another little bonus to be starting on the lefthand side. It should be a good starting point for a top 10 finish. We obviously want to finish as high up as we can but we’re really in the fight with RB and to some extent Williams and Alpine as well, so we need to finish ahead of them and in the points tomorrow.

It was an amazing Qualifying session for us and I’m very happy to be in Q3 for the second race in a row. We made a lot of changes between Free Practice 3 and Qualifying, as we were last on the timesheets, struggling with the car and just generally lacking grip. The team did a great job, so credit to everyone for persevering and finding those improvements. It is clear that this car, with our recent upgrades, has potential and it seems that we are operating within a small window, which we must continue to understand. We were just 0.006secs from another position today but, still, I’m pleased with our turnaround and how we were able to put together some strong laps. We’ve put ourselves in a good position on the grid for tomorrow. Last week, we had a strong Saturday but struggled on Sunday, and hopefully we have learnt from that and can be in the fight for points.

Q3 was a nice surprise today but I do think we could’ve been P7. I caught some dirty air from the Mercedes’ in the final sector, which could’ve put us ahead of Kevin and Pierre but we’re still in a good position for tomorrow and I’m glad I could deliver P9 for the team and the mechanics who worked really hard to repair the car. Obviously, I haven’t had the chance to do a long run, so we won’t know until we go out there, but the car feels good and the used tyres we ran on felt okay which is a good judge ahead of tomorrow. We have a lot of our direct competitors around us tomorrow and a few cars out of position but it’s not always easy to overtake around here, so we’ll try our best to move forward.

It’s been a bit of a struggle for me to be honest, all weekend long. I’m not getting off on the right foot with the car and the laps aren’t coming as I’d like, and how they should. I’m struggling to find rhythm and harmony; some laps are good, some laps are not good, and in Q3 unfortunately I couldn’t find it. Kevin did a great job in P7, so two cars in the top 10 is good and we’ve got good top speed at a track where overtaking is difficult, so it’s all to play for tomorrow.

I lost the car into the stadium section. I had a big front lock up, which I haven’t experienced throughout the weekend, so it was a bit strange. It’s a shame we couldn’t maximise the opportunity of the pace we’ve shown here. I’m sorry to the Team. Tonight, we will assess the damage and see what’s possible for tomorrow. We will work on our strategy to get back into the points.

It’s a shame, the Team has given both of us a very good car this weekend that was capable of Q3, but it’s one of those things and being out at the back, it’s the risk we run. We had a really good first sector that was improving; if we had finished the lap we were on, we would have made it. We’ll have to find a way to get some clean air. It’ll be tough, but if we have the speed on the straight, we should be able to overtake. Our race pace looks quite good, so I’m confident we can move forward and that we’re in a good place to fight for points tomorrow.

We have struggled most of the weekend for performance but in Qualifying the car felt a lot better than in Free Practice and I was much happier. We opted to use three sets of tyres in Q1 and we made it through. I was doing a good lap in Q2 just before the red flag ended the session and I think we might have made it through into Q3 had we been able to finish the lap. I don't expect any miracles tomorrow, but I am ready to fight and enjoy my 400th Grand Prix. I dreamt of becoming a Formula One driver as a child and I'm here with more than two decades in the sport so I'm extremely lucky.

I was on my final flying lap when the red flag came out, but I think Q3 would have been a challenge anyway. Getting through to Q2 was the goal here in Mexico, so we can be happy with that. Still, we are definitely not where we want to be and there's a lot of work to do to improve the car's performance.

I have mixed feelings about how the day went. The positive is that we made it to Q2: it has been a while since we had last been here, so that's really good to see for all of us. I want to thank the whole team for all the effort to get us there, hopefully it can give a motivation boost for the final part of the season. However, I feel we could have got even more than P15: we were unlucky with the red flag in Q2 - I was on a good lap, and I was in the last sector, close to finishing, when the red flag came out. I think that lap would have put us quite close to the top 10, which is a shame. At least, we are a step ahead from the previous weekend, and we seem to have decent pace here. We'll try our best tomorrow; it could be a very interesting race.

It was a very difficult Qualifying session today. Unfortunately, it looks like we went in the wrong direction with the set-up change we made after FP3. I was struggling to combine in the corners and suffered from over-rotation. We need to try and recover tomorrow but it’ll be tricky with how the balance of the car is right now. We’ll look to understand the issues and see what we can do to fix it with the tools available. Hopefully, we can try to go forward in the race.

A painful and disappointing afternoon. My first lap on the Soft was looking good and would have been enough to progress to Q2 until I lost a lot of time going over the curb and had the lap deleted as a result. I then didn't have enough grip on the second push lap to be able to put it all together.
We're in a similar starting position to Lando at this event last year, and he still had a good race, so we'll look to push forward and make up as many places as we can. The car is in a good spot so we'll be aiming for the points tomorrow.

It is a disappointing way to end my qualifying, we definitely had more pace but I am struggling a lot, it is similar issues to Singapore and Austin. Into the low speed I cannot brake or stop the car and as soon as I attack the braking I start sliding and locking up. So that is my main issue and where I am struggling the most, here it showed even more. There are four races to go and we have to get on top of the issues as a Team. I am having to modulate the braking too much and just don’t have confidence in the car. Here is the worst place to not perform, I am super disappointed. The Grand Prix where I wanted to do the best possible job, it is just not coming together. I hope tomorrow we can enter the points. I need to try and maximise the day, it is going to be very hard but I owe these fans, they are the best in the world, this is the best race in the world.

Today has been a tough day. We struggled in both Free Practice 3 and Qualifying, which is frustrating after a more positive day yesterday. There was clearly something that did not work out for us in Qualifying so we need to debrief with the team to understand what happened and what we can do better for next time. We will start on the back row tomorrow so the aim will of course be to make our way forwards. It won’t be easy, but we will do our best to have a decent race.

Today’s session was disappointing, as we struggled with grip across the board. Even though we saw significant track evolution, we couldn't quite achieve the speed we expected as the session went on. We’ll need to dive into the data to understand what’s holding us back and see how we can address it ahead of tomorrow. Starting from the back makes for a challenging race, but we’ll be ready to seize any opportunities that come our way. With a long run into turn one, we’re aiming to make up some ground right from the start.