Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

It was a great day for us and good to be so competitive here at this track. To get Pole here is big: we need to celebrate these successes and it was a confidence boost for sure. It is always tough round here and you have to really commit with low downforce and hit the apex perfectly. It is great to get the fastest lap but I never look at these kind of stats as it depends on so many different factors. There is new tarmac which helps and in every session we got a little bit better, which is what we wanted. The car was in a better window and I had a lot more confidence to go for it and attack the corners. Tomorrow, of course, the win is always the target. The McLarens are pretty strong so it will be tough to beat them, but if the feeling of the tyres are better then who knows, we might be able to.

That was quite a session for me. It was quite up and down but I’m happy to put it together so well on the final lap, and am satisfied with P2 on the grid tomorrow – it’s not a bad position to have off the line, and we knew Max [Verstappen] would be quick today. Of course, I’d rather be in front of everybody, it’ll be tough to get past Max, and there are very fast cars behind. It’s a long race, a lot can happen, but Sunday is usually our strength, so I’m excited.

Qualifying was a close one today. I felt like I executed a pretty good session and built up my pace well. Overall, I am still feeling confident for tomorrow, and whilst it wasn’t where I wanted to be starting, it just proves how incredibly tight it has been this weekend. A lot of teams look quick, but we have good race pace, and there are so many factors at play here, so I am sure we can go forward.

I’m very happy with my lap in Q3 and P4 was the maximum result we could extract from our car today. We had a really good race here last year, so I’ll do my best to reproduce that, not just because standing on the podium in Monza is an incredible feeling, but also for our tifosi who have given us so much support around the track all weekend. It’s going to be very tough to do, and so far, Red Bull and McLaren have had the upper hand, but we will give our all to make something special happen in the race.

We come away from today slightly disappointed with where we qualified. There was a miscommunication as to what tyre to run in Q3 but ultimately, we didn’t do the job in that final segment. We were fastest in Q1 on the Medium and Kimi was second quickest in Q2 on the Soft, so we know that there was likely more that we could have achieved than P6 and P7 in the final order.

With grid penalties applied, we start P5 tomorrow so let’s see what we can do. With the low downforce wings that everyone runs, it is hard to overtake here. Ferrari look very quick in a straight-line too and we have Charles (Leclerc) starting just in front of us. We will therefore need to take any opportunities that come our way if we are able to move forward. I hope we can make progress.

That is a much better result than we have managed to achieve in Qualifying recently. I had to rebuild my speed having lost track time in FP2 so to be starting near the front again is a good result. We can therefore be pleased with how today went, even if we know that there was likely more performance there. My last lap wasn’t my best so I think we could have been starting higher up but I am still happy with how our session unfolded.

The field is very tight, and we have a slight top line speed disadvantage to Ferrari this weekend due to set-up choices. We know overtaking is already difficult here so it may be a challenge to make much progress from P6. That said, our race pace has looked useful, and we can hopefully use that to good effect on Sunday to gain positions and come away with a strong result.

I’m really happy with our performance today and to have made it back in Q3. The last lap wasn’t ideal, and I feel like I left a little bit on the table there, but it’s still a strong position to start from. The car felt good today, our pace is there, and I think tomorrow has the potential to be an interesting one. Looking at the grid, there’s a few top teams ahead of us, but I’m feeling quite confident we can put up a decent fight and see what’s possible in the race.

I am happy as we weren’t expecting to be in Q3 here in Monza. I think the car was much better in Qualifying and the team managed the session well with good tyre preparation and traffic management, which can always be a challenge here. It’s not a secret that we are slower on the straights, but we are starting in the top ten tomorrow, so we can be a little more optimistic for the race and let\'s see if we can fight for some points.

Reaching Q3 was exactly what I wanted to achieve today and I am happy to see the progress that we are making race by race which resulted in winning points at Zandvoort last weekend. It was a shame that I was first to take to the track in Q3 and had to lead the pack, as traditionally Monza is a track that needs slipstream. I would like to congratulate the Team overall this weekend and Max for putting it on pole, it has not been easy in general but I felt the strength of the adaptation that everyone in the garage has shown. I feel like I demonstrated consistency in Q3 and was only a tenth behind Max which is positive. Since the upgrade brought to Spa we have been making progress but the balance definitely still feels a bit messy. Tomorrow won’t be easy and our one lap pace wasn’t beautiful but I am feeling confident.

It\'s been a positive weekend overall and, without the penalty, today\'s result would have been satisfying. The team has worked tirelessly and the tifosi have made every day so special with their energy, which has been pushing me on even more.
Starting from P10 won\'t be easy and strategy will be key, but we\'ve shown good pace over the long runs and this is a track where overtaking is possible. We\'ll work hard tonight and hopefully deliver a result that makes the tifosi proud.

I’m feeling pretty good. I’m happy with my lap, even though of course there’s always a little bit of time to be found when you look at it, but I was giving it everything out there. It’s more annoying to miss Q3 by such a small margin compared to a massive one, so that’s a shame, but it shows the good work we’ve been doing in the practice sessions because I didn’t expect to be fighting for Q3 today. We improved the car a lot yesterday so that’s great, and with regard to tomorrow, I have a good feeling also about that as the car felt great on high fuel.

Qualifying today just wasn’t good enough on my part. In Q2, I didn’t execute the first run properly, which meant I didn’t have a banker lap before the second attempt. That left me with only one shot, so I couldn’t take the usual risks and had to leave a bit of margin to make sure we secured a competitive time. Looking ahead to tomorrow, the car feels quick and we’re in a good place, so it’s all still to play for with the field as tight as ever. I feel confident in the car, so let’s see what we can do in the race.

We expected today to be a lot more challenging. We’ve been struggling all season with our single lap pace on the Soft compound, being very tricky to get them into the optimum window and feeling like every push lap is different from each other. However, I have faith on our race pace, and I will give absolutely everything out there to get into the points. Let’s race!

It\'s a frustrating result, as it\'s the same issue of getting the tyres to work. We tried absolutely everything this weekend, so we need to go back to the drawing board. We have a good car here, which you see in Free Practice when we can do some more things with outlaps and cool laps, but our issues come in Qualifying when it matters. Carlos showed in Q1 a glimpse of our true pace and where I think we belong. It will be a one-stop here, so we’ll need clean air and to be careful with degradation. As easy as this track looks to overtake, it\'s actually quite difficult and the DRS train is usually an issue here. We\'re not where we want to be but tomorrow, we will work together and see what we can do.

It’s been a disappointing session overall. In Q1, it was a bit tricky as we didn’t have the right track position. In Q2 we didn’t maximize the whole lap, and the car just felt worse than in Q1. We struggled with front under rotation, front locking, and quite a lot of understeer in high-speed. Overall, it felt like a balance I had earlier in the year, so we need to work out what went wrong and hopefully tomorrow it won’t be the case. It won’t be easy – it will be tough into Turn 1 and 2 – but we’ll fight hard like we usually do.

We came to Monza with expectations that this weekend was going to be challenging for us, because this track doesn\'t suit our car so much. We did what we could in Qualifying, but it’s just so tight across the whole grid so P17 was the maximum that was in it for us today. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow and hope for some opportunities we can capitalise on.

It was tricky for us this afternoon. Monza is a circuit which probably does not work well for our car and that has been clear all weekend. Personally, I felt like the laps were good, I am feeling happier in the car at the moment, but we are just lacking some speed to put ourselves any further up the grid. We will work on a strategy for tomorrow and aim to maximise our end result. It will not be a straightforward one but we will do our best to move forwards and round off the European part of the season in the best possible way.

A really disappointing session. Our lap was compromised when I picked up dirty air and had understeer through the middle of Turn 6, which caused me to run off track. It’s a shame because the car has been very quick all weekend. We had a few issues, but the guys in the garage worked hard and got everything sorted in time for Qualifying. This track isn’t straightforward, but there are overtaking opportunities. Starting from where I am, there are a lot of cars to get through, it’s going to be tough, but I’ll try my best to move forward.

It was a frustrating Qualifying session for us. Carlos was out there on used tyres and I felt like he was fighting hard to find the right track position. I still don’t know what he was doing, but my outlap was compromised, which was followed by a mistake I made in my push lap. Overall though, our car is very fast around here. I was really happy with the feeling I had this morning in FP3 and during my first run in Q1, but starting last means that we’re going to have a challenging race. We’ll try our best to make a great recovery tomorrow.

We always knew this would be a difficult session for us with our car not too well suited for this track. What is encouraging is that we closed the gap to the cars in front of us since Practice, so I felt we did a good job there to make improvements and still be in the mix. I had some traffic on my last run, it cost me a little bit, but still probably not enough to reach Q2. Again, it will be tight tomorrow and in any scenario, we will always put up a fight and give it our all. It has been a day of big news for me as I have extended my contract at the team until the end of the 2028 season. I have confidence and optimism for the future and it is great to be able to announce it here on the five-year anniversary of my first Formula One win.