Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

My first Pole position! I’m very, very happy with that Qualifying. I found a lot of pace in Q3 after genuinely struggling in Q1 and Q2. The car just came alive, I came alive, and I’m pumped to be on Pole. It was a lot of fun out there, the new surface is extremely grippy, but when you lose grip, it bites pretty hard. It was pretty tricky today, but when you hook it up, it’s mega.

Looking back to the Sprint, I was pretty happy with how the car performed – I’d have been happier to finish one place higher, but I couldn’t have asked for much more and we learned a lot to take forward, and hopefully can put that to good use tomorrow.

When we are able to bring it all together, we can definitely compete right at the front. I’m therefore really pleased that we were able to qualify P2 and will start on the front-row tomorrow. I don’t think anybody expected to be challenging the McLarens, but I don’t think they optimised what they had today. P3 would have been a good result, so P2 is a great result. I’m proud of the whole team and the job they’ve done.

For the final lap in Q3, we tried a slightly different out lap preparation. We’d been trying a few different things throughout the session but on that last lap it finally clicked. I think that was one of my best qualifying efforts of my career and it was really rewarding to come away with a good starting position for the race. Tomorrow is a new day, and the Grand Prix will be dictated by race pace. Hopefully we can look after the tyres well, utilise the pace that is in the car, and come home with a strong result.

It\'s always disappointing not to be on P1 but congratulations to Oscar on his first Grand Prix Pole, he deserved it today. I can’t be too disappointed though because P3 is a step in the right direction after this morning’s frustrating Sprint. The car feels much better, and I\'ve got a lot more confidence with the setup changes. We worked hard to make those improvements for Quali, and I\'ll continue to work hard with the team overnight in preparation for tomorrow’s race.

We were just a bit too slow today and I think we had quite a big gap to those out in front. It is quite difficult as we were really struggling for grip, which didn’t allow me to push hard. In some corners we had different balance, so it was hard to get good references for every single lap. I think it will likely be quite similar to tomorrow and tough on tyres. I tried to do the best that we could and get the best lap possible, but it wasn’t easy. In the Sprint today we still finished P3, even though we did have a bit of degradation, so that was a good result for us. We will try and maximise everything that we can and the Team will work hard to make some changes in the car that I hope will make things better for the race. I don’t expect a night and day difference as we lack race performance and it will be difficult to keep up with the cars ahead, but we will see ahead of tomorrow. It is one of my favourite races on the calendar so it should still be fun.

Getting my first Sprint pole and then win in a Ferrari was such a special feeling. The car felt strong and we managed to bring everything together to cross the line first and bring home some good points for the team. The reaction from the crowd was just incredible.

Qualifying was tougher and we didn’t get the most out of the car over a lap today, but clearly we have the potential and now it’s about working hard to make sure we can consistently unlock that pace across a weekend. The taste of winning has made us all even hungrier and although it will be tough tomorrow, we know the work we need to do.

The Sprint Race was not ideal, we didn’t have the pace to do anything special in the first part, then the second was slightly better, but it just wasn’t enough to get further ahead without taking risks. I went with a slightly different configuration this morning, but I don’t think there was much more to gain in terms of set-up for tomorrow.

Qualifying went as expected, our overall pace was not fast enough and it will be tricky now that we are both in the middle of the pack, starting side by side. We struggled a bit more today compared to Sprint Qualifying and we have to understand where we could have taken a step forward even if I feel I got everything I could out of the car this afternoon.

The race will be challenging, and tyre management will be a huge factor. There is an unknown in that we have never experienced these cars in similar track temperatures so far, whether in testing or a race, so it will be interesting to see how this will affect everyone’s performance. The aim is always to win, but starting from where we are on the grid, a podium would be a positive result.

It was important for me to gain some experience in the Sprint race this morning, and I think it was a decent race for us where I also had fun battling with some of the other drivers. Towards the end of the race, we had a very good pace, in a circuit where tyre degradation is pretty high for everyone. It seemed that for us it was better than the other midfield cars around, but I think we can still improve and we have some ideas on how to make a further step forward.

This afternoon, Q1 was fantastic. I think I had my best balance there and I felt very good in the car. Then throughout Q2 and Q3, the wind changed, which impacted the feeling I had whilst I was driving. It was an intense and stressful Q3, and I was obviously very excited to be out there with the top guys, but at the same time, I’m a bit gutted about my final lap as I think there was still a bit more lap time to find. After Melbourne, the team did a great job coming here to Shanghai and maximizing the package in a very different circuit. The car works perfectly and we’ll do our best to try and get some points tomorrow.

I am a little disappointed to qualify P8. We tried various out lap strategies, but it was a challenge to extract the best out of the tyre consistently. I had some good laps throughout the session but my two laps in Q3 weren’t my strongest. It is useful in helping me continue to build my learning and my knowledge though. It was definitely a good experience to have such a tricky Qualifying session, having to adapt every run to get the best from the tyres, and help me improve.

The positives we can take from today are that, when it’s hooked up, the car is feeling good. George definitely showed what was possible today. The pace is there to move forward tomorrow, and we will be looking to make up some positions across the Grand Prix.

A strong Sprint race today, it was not certainly easy. I’m impressed with how the pace was throughout. I thought it was going to be a very tough race, but we were able to hold off quite well and keep the top teams behind. I definitely enjoyed it. Towards the end I had quite a lot of degradation, which I wasn’t expecting, but I was happy that I was able to maximise the performance of the car and squeeze the last couple of points in the bag, especially losing big points last week

In Quali, I’m happy that we have both cars in the mix, we are performing super super good. A big credit to the team here and in the factory, the amount of effort they’ve done, it’s massive, such a fantastic job. As for myself, I struggled in Q3, I made a bit of a mistake there. I had a bit of momentum in T13, I went off the track and wasn’t able to finish the lap. Until then it was a good lap. Isack did a very good job as well, he bounced back really strong. We’re in the mix for sure, we just need to put it all together with strategy, but I think there’s potential for both cars to score points tomorrow like we did in the Sprint race.

It’s so close out there! I think we had the whole of the midfield spread by a tenth by our calculations. Q1 and Q2 were honestly almost the same because the margins were so close. I’m very happy to have executed well and get clean laps on the board. The wind was gusting quite a lot during that session and it’s easy to make mistakes in those conditions, but I think I was consistent out there. It’s difficult to do that on a tricky track like this, it’s easy to overdrive and the tyres are so sensitive. It felt like I was in a good rhythm. We made some set up changes today but there’s still a lot to do. I’m happy to get through but it’s going to be a tough race tomorrow.

We learned quite a bit in the Sprint, obviously used it to get more data. It looks like it was difficult with tires for everyone – more for some than others. On our side it was a bit better at the end. We’ll give everything a good look but the race pace was okay I would say – that’s something we need to keep pushing forward though. For qualifying we probably changed about three quarters of the car, it was a huge turnaround from the team. They did a really good job to improve the car from the Sprint to where it is now – so I’m very happy with that. I think there’s still some performance to be gained from the car, so this isn’t a definite stop on where we are. So, it’s positive – especially coming from Melbourne. Let’s try and optimize tomorrow. We’re close to the points so let’s see what we can get.

That was probably close to the maximum we could achieve today. My final lap in Q2 wasn\'t perfect with the windy conditions causing a mini mistake in sector one, which likely cost me a shot at Q3. However, I\'m pretty pleased with P12 in Quali this afternoon, as the connection with the car was the best I’ve had all weekend: it was a great team effort to come back from a difficult Sprint and we made some good changes to improve the car. Tomorrow is going to be a challenging race, but we’ve given ourselves a good chance to be in the fight.

It wasn\'t the best Qualifying for us today and we missed out on the top ten by one tenth. We had some difficulty with the out-lap traffic, but it was the same for everyone. We ended up making a few set-up changes to the car between the Sprint and Qualifying to try help us with improving tyre degradation for the race. We couldn\'t see any advantage today, but let\'s see if these changes have helped. I\'m still hopeful for some opportunities tomorrow and we will try to score some points.

Today was a good effort to reach Q2 and we are more or less where we expected to be. I had some space to get some clean runs in, and I used some learnings from the Sprint earlier today. The tyres definitely made it tricky, but everyone is dealing with the same challenges. We\'ll keep pushing to get everything out of the car tomorrow.

Still struggling with the same issues during Qualifying. As soon as I begin to push, I lose the feeling with the car in certain corners and struggle to improve the total lap time. I’m trying to make the most of it, but the reality is that I am unfortunately not there yet, especially in the last sector. I know I’ll end up getting there with the car, it’s now a matter of shortening the process as much as possible. Regarding tomorrow’s race, we’ve made some big set-up changes to the car and hopefully we will be in better shape than this morning. Graining will again be key, so let’s see what we can achieve.

It has been a challenging Saturday as a team but one where we have learned a lot and there are definitely some things we can take into tomorrow’s race when it counts. It was an exciting Sprint Race this morning even if we started too far back to really be in contention for the points. We gained five positions, made some nice moves and, importantly, learned some lessons on the tyres ahead of Sunday’s race. In Qualifying, in the afternoon, we seemed to lack pace and we need to understand why. It’s very tight on the timesheets and very fine margins make a big difference in terms of our end position. We will see what opportunities come tomorrow and aim to gain some places up towards the points.

It was a tough Sprint, we’re still missing a bit of pace. We made a good start and held position but after that it was just a case of trying to manage the tires. I expected the fronts to drop off and they did a little bit more than some of the others. In qualifying we had planned three runs today in Q1, and we just didn’t quite make it out there for the last one. It’s tight to fit three runs in with all the turnaround and everything – unfortunately I just didn’t cross the line in time. We changed a few things on the car, my first lap was getting used to that, second one was better. I think the changes are more based towards the race so hopefully we can have a good one tomorrow.

Overall, it has been quite a tough day and we will regroup as a team and focus on having a more positive one tomorrow. This morning’s Sprint Race was one where we focused on learning about the tyres and, in the end, it was a difficult one to make progress with the DRS train and quite high tyre degradation. We learned a lot from the session in preparation for Sunday’s race. We tried to maximise what we could in Qualifying despite less than optimal circumstances on the out lap and quite tight timing amongst a number of cars ahead of the final run. We will analyse everything as a team and, importantly, focus straight away on tomorrow and see how we can try and make our way up the field.

My first Sprint weekend continues to provide me with important learning opportunities. This morning, despite a decent starting place on the grid, we unfortunately struggled with tyre degradation and weren’t able to capitalise on the good work we had done on Friday. I couldn’t keep up with the pace, and the contact with Jack [Doohan] towards the end also added some car damage to the mix. We overall lacked grip compared to other competitors, which made maintaining our position challenging. Still, I\'ve been enjoying racing on this circuit so far, and we got to learn something more that will turn useful in the race on Sunday. Qualifying has been a frustrating one for me: I got caught in traffic on the outlap, which ended up compromising my final push attempt. It’s a shame, because the car had been feeling good, and we had been making progress – we could realistically have had a shot at Q2. But that’s qualifying – sometimes things just don’t fall into place. The focus now is on tomorrow, making the most of what we’ve learned today, and fighting for every position in the race.

It was a messy qualifying and had we not dealt with traffic, it might have been ok, but it is still not good enough to be having these issues, we should be fast enough on our first lap. We shouldn’t need a perfect session to get out of Q2, we should be well down the road. It’s a tough car to drive for sure and you always want more time to get used to it. The window in this car is really small and that is known, but that is not an excuse. I have got to get a handle on it. We have had glimpses where it feels good, and I think to drive a Formula One car you need one hundred percent confidence; I am not saying I don’t have it but right now I just seem to be missing the window I need the car in - it is that I need to get on top of. The Team are doing a really good job to support me, it is not something they can do, we are all working together and they will continue to help me with the car but it is something I need to do, I need to drive the car faster. We have an opportunity tomorrow and, a bit like in the Sprint, we will just try to move forward and take learnings to get on top of the tyre graining more. I will just try to do a better job.