Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Pole position in Monaco is an incredible result. The team did an amazing job to get the car in a good place, particularly with the improvements we made overnight after a difficult Friday. It was such a tight fight out there with so many other cars and drivers that looked capable of taking P1. I am delighted to come away with pole therefore and I’m already looking forward to tomorrow.

Qualifying wasn’t completely straightforward at the start. The car felt a bit on edge but as the session went on, everything started to come together. We made the right adjustments, and I felt much more comfortable with where the car was by the time we got to Q3. That gave me the confidence to really push when it mattered.

That final segment of the session was extremely tense and you never quite know what to expect. Finding those last few tenths is never easy, especially with Max (Verstappen) so close all the way through. It really came down to nailing the lap at the right moment and I’m very pleased we were able to do that.

To be on pole here means a lot, but at the same time, it’s only the first step. I know who’s around me on the grid, and I’m sure they’ll be putting on the pressure from the very start. The focus now is on getting a strong launch and managing the race from there. We’ve shown good pace all weekend, which gives me confidence, but Monaco is always unpredictable. I’ll try to stay calm, make the most of the opportunity, and see what we can achieve tomorrow.

I am really happy with my performance, if you had told me yesterday that we would be on the front row, I would have definitely taken it! It was a bit of a surprise as this morning I think we had a few difficulties with the car, so ending up on the front row I think was extremely positive. The cars are a bit more on edge than the last few years. When the power kicks in, as well as drivability and shifts, it’s all a bit different. When you get a clean lap and can go flat out on the limit, it feels great and very rewarding. This is the most important session of the weekend and I am happy to be where we are. I’m very happy with how all the laps went, even though you have to deal with all the traffic and the walls. Tomorrow, it is critical to get the start right, it can get a bit complicated and I have two cars behind me that start quite well, so let’s see. A lot can happen so it’s all to play for.

Monaco always delivers one of the standout qualifying sessions of the season, with an incredible crowd and atmosphere and a level of intensity I always enjoy. At the start of the session, I didn’t quite have the same confidence in the car that I felt in free practice, so we will need to look closely at what changed, especially as we didn’t make any significant adjustments. I could feel some differences in balance, but the margins were incredibly tight throughout between Kimi, Max, Charles and myself.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s race and to the opportunity to bring home a strong result. The team at the factory is doing a fantastic job, and I’m confident we can continue to fight more consistently at the front in the races ahead.

It’s been a tough weekend for me, right from the first session. I’ve been struggling to get the right feeling in the car and have been facing some issues, which I am sure we will find solutions for soon. But on a track like this, if you go into qualifying without full confidence, you can pay the price. Today, it was a combination of different factors that played a role, and unfortunately, I didn’t finish my last flying lap in Q3 which means I will start from the second row tomorrow. Nevertheless, I will give it my all.

I’m definitely satisfied with that result. After yesterday, there was a lot to do, both with the car and with my confidence, but I just took it step by step with each lap. We struggled a little in Q1 with traffic and the tyres, but made a big step in Q2 and another in Q3. The car was fast around here, and we knew the track was going to suit us, so I just wish I’d had a smoother lead-up to today. I’m still happy with fifth; hopefully the pack will be tight tomorrow and we can make some overtakes with a strong strategy.

This has been a very challenging weekend for me so far and that continued into qualifying. It has been a bit of a weakness of mine recently and unfortunately it didn’t click this weekend. There were a few good laps across the hour, and FP3 had been promising, but those moments were too few and far between. You need full confidence in the grip level you are getting, particularly around here, and I didn’t quite have that.

It’s been a frustrating run for me recently and I need to understand why I am struggling to get the tyres working in the way they need to be. Clearly something in my driving style isn’t helping deliver what I need to; it worked well last year but these new generations of car may need something slightly different. I don’t have a clear answer just yet but will work hard with the team to get on top of it.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, it could be a long afternoon starting from P6. That said, it’s Monaco and anything can happen so we will stay optimistic and see what we can do.

This has not been an easy weekend for us at all. We came here expecting a challenge, and it has definitely been one. The fundamental issue has been a general lack of grip, and while we\'ve made some progress since Friday and improved the balance of the car, we\'re still lacking the speed. From my side, I think we got as much out of the car as we could in Qualifying and we put together some decent laps. Looking ahead to the race, we have to be realistic. This circuit is notoriously difficult for overtaking, and we don\'t expect that to change. Our focus will be on executing a clean strategy and managing the car as best we can. Anything can happen in Monaco, so let\'s see what we can do.

We’ve been on the back foot all weekend and Qualifying showed that. My laps were strong until the last one, where I pushed a bit too much trying to find three tenths and locked up. We did make some gains from practice and the earlier sessions looked better, but that was partly because the faster cars were more conservative while we were already flat out. We know what’s missing, and it’s better to recognise it now rather than later in the season. Tomorrow we’ll be aggressive on strategy and ready to take chances with Safety Cars or anything that comes our way, but overtaking is tough here, so we have to be realistic. The focus is on improving the car, getting the rear stability and downforce we need, so we can translate the kind of pace we had in Miami to tracks like Barcelona.

I am very happy with that result and I don\'t think we could have done better than P9 today, the best behind the top four teams who are out of reach at the moment. I was absolutely buzzing when I crossed the line, filled with so much adrenaline after nailing that final Q3 lap. I was taking a lot of extra risk and grazed the walls everywhere! It\'s a nice feeling when everything comes together. We had to work hard for it as a team as it hasn\'t been a straightforward weekend up until this stage. This track always feels quite odd, it never feels like the car is perfect such is the nature of this place, so we just tried to change small things to try and improve the overall package. The team did a great job and has worked really hard to put us in a position when, in the end, it comes down to small margins. Once we sneaked into Q3, I just absolutely went for it! We know how important Qualifying is here so we will see what happens in the race where we expect overtaking to be quite challenging. I will keep an open mind and see what happens in the race.

I\'m very happy with the result today and it feels good to get to Q3. We really improved the car from yesterday when we struggled more than we anticipated, so it meant that we made a lot more changes than we usually would. It\'s obviously hard to overtake here, so having a strong start will be the target. It\'s such an enjoyable experience driving this track, so I can\'t wait to get back out there tomorrow.

I\'m happy with P11 today. We left Q3 on the table which is a little frustrating, but my final lap was entirely on the limit. I clipped the barrier in sector 3 as I was pushing flat out and I lost a little bit of time but was able to get away with it. As a team, we took a different approach this weekend to try and get into the rhythm early after a series of tougher race weekends and missing out on track time, so we tried to keep it simple and just chip away and build on every session. This was a result of all the work we\'ve done recently, so P11 and P12 are decent starting positions for tomorrow. The strategy for the race is looking like a one-stop so having a good start will be crucial to hopefully make up some positions and get into the points.

On one hand, I’m impressed that I was able to make it out of Q1 as I had no choice but to go out on a set of used and cold tyres after the red flag, so it was probably one of the best laps I’ve ever done in that situation to make it cleanly into Q2. On the other hand, in Q2 I made some mistakes and experienced front locking in a few corners that lost me one or two tenths, and it just wasn’t good enough. We know it\'s tough to overtake in Monaco but we’re not too far from the top 10, so I’ll focus on having a good start and do my best to get back into the points.

Obviously, I\'m disappointed with today\'s qualifying result. Coming into the session, things were looking a lot more promising, so it\'s frustrating not to have converted that into a stronger grid position. In the final run, we were a bit unlucky with traffic, which certainly didn\'t help, but that\'s part of qualifying around Monaco and there wasn\'t much I could do about it. More generally, we were carrying some damage on the car, which certainly didn\'t help. Nevertheless, we expected to be a bit more competitive, so we\'ll need to look through everything and understand exactly how much it impacted us and where the performance went. Tomorrow will be challenging from where we start, but Monaco can always create opportunities, so we\'ll stay focused and look to make the most of whatever comes our way.

On one hand I\'m disappointed with the result, as you always want to start as high up as possible in Monaco, given it\'s one of the most important Qualifying sessions of the year. I\'m also really proud of the team and the work we\'ve been doing over the past few days to try to understand where we\'ve been struggling and where we can improve the car. We worked late into the night and made some progress from where we were yesterday and, in the end, we were only a few tenths off making it to Q3. However, the gaps are so tight here on a short circuit, that we missed out and will likely have a long race ahead of us tomorrow. I\'ve been struggling with front and rear locking all weekend, and when you don\'t have the confidence around here to push to the limit and get close to the walls, it really costs you. It just hasn\'t clicked this weekend compared to recent races. We knew coming into the weekend that this is a unique track and might not play to the strengths of our current package. We will give it our best shot tomorrow, try to keep our nose clean at the start and see what comes our way. Anything can happen here with stoppages or red flags, so we need to be ready to capitalise.

Today’s Qualifying session was pretty messy and difficult to manage. I felt good in Q1 and was on a strong lap before the red flag came out. In Q2, our tyres were much colder and I struggled for grip on the first run. I knew I needed to make a step on the final run, but with all the queuing before the lap, I just couldn’t get the tyres into the right window. We’ll go away and look at why it was so sensitive and see what we can learn from it. Tomorrow it’s going to be difficult to make our way forward, but we’ll study some previous races and work out where we can maximise every opportunity.

I\'m sorry for the team because they\'ve done an incredible job all weekend and deserved to see our car in the top 10. Unfortunately, I wasn\'t able to deliver that today. We had the pace to fight for a place in the top 10, but I took a few too many risks in Q1 and clipped the wall going into the Swimming Pool chicane. That ultimately damaged the suspension and ended the session for me. It’s the sort of mistake that can be understandable in Q3, when you’re pushing to the limit, but not so early in the session. Starting position is crucial in Monaco, we knew it well going into qualifying. I am aware tomorrow won\'t be easy, but our pace has been encouraging all weekend, and we\'ll keep fighting to try and make up as much ground as possible.

The car was going to be good to progress further up high into Q2, and maybe Q3. The track was going to come to us as well, and I feel like I say this every time, but we were unlucky – we never catch a break. In my fast lap, I got traffic by two tenths already, then the red flag came, and we didn’t have enough time to warm up the tires, so we couldn’t improve – it\'s as simple as that. It’s a big shame for the whole team, as we did find performance from Friday to Saturday, it was quite positive, but we’ll never know now. We’ll see tomorrow what we can do.

I think we got the maximum out there today with what we currently have. It was so close and we just lacked a few hundredths, otherwise we could have been there. In Monaco the drivers can always make a big difference, and I gave it everything today. We know that there can be a lot of opportunities round here in the race, so we will see. We’ll do our best.

The guys worked tirelessly to put the car back together following FP3, and it was feeling so good, we should’ve still been out there. I got very unlucky and was on for a lap that would’ve easily gotten me into Q2 when the red flag struck. After the red flag, we queued up for two minutes, so when I got out there, I had no grip on the lap, and I was sliding around all over the place. I was on the limit, giving it everything I could, but there was just no grip. We’ve been doing prep laps throughout the weekend, but we couldn’t with the time left on the clock. I’m very disappointed.

I was hoping for a bit more today, but it does seem like some gaps are getting a bit smaller for us and we\'re ahead of both Astons. I thought maybe this track would suit our car but we\'re struggling a lot with the ride. We tried everything with the car setup to make the ride better; however we then lose load with the ride heights so it\'s tricky. There’s clearly one area we can improve, which is curbing and how the car takes the bumps. Those last two laps at the end of Quali felt like I couldn\'t get anything more out of it from my side. It\'s been tricky with this car here, but we knew it was going to be a challenge. The race is tomorrow and it\'s a new day, so we will try again.

There wasn’t a big difference compared to yesterday and we just don’t have the pace. We had some hopes coming here to Monaco, but we don’t have much confidence in the car and have had a lack of front grip all weekend. I thought I did the best laps possible today with this current package.

We\'ve struggled with the same issues all weekend - the car has been tricky with no grip, so this result was expected. The team has been trying various changes between sessions, but we\'re limited with downforce and power, so it\'s not much fun out there.