Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

The car has felt good all day, and we’ve managed to put everything together, both in the Sprint and then in Qualifying. I was struggling for momentum at the start of the Sprint but once I caught up to Lewis (Hamilton) and got within overtake mode, I was confident I could get the pass done. Once I was in free air, I had the pace to build a gap and bring home the car for the win.

We knew, just as it was yesterday, that Qualifying would be a big fight with the Ferraris. That is exactly how it turned out; I had a lock-up in Q2 which cost me some confidence, but we changed some settings and got back on track. My final effort was a very tidy lap and proved good enough for pole position.

We’ve had a positive weekend so far but tomorrow will be a long race. We will need to make a good start and work hard to keep the Ferraris at bay. They’ve shown great pace here at Silverstone and we will need to be at our best if we want to beat them.

In the Sprint, I lost a few positions at the start, and from then on, I had some battles to get further ahead. The pace was alright, and I have some ideas on what I’d like to change ahead of the race, so I look forward to working on that and hopefully making us even stronger.

I’m pleased with my qualifying. In the past few races I struggled to put it all together, so starting from the front row once again is a good feeling. There has been a lot of work behind the scenes to get here, so today is a positive for us. It’s just the beginning, but a step in the right direction. I’ll give it my all tomorrow to make our team and tifosi proud.

It\'s been a long day so a huge thank you to all the fans here. The atmosphere has been incredible and the support from the grandstands really gave me a boost in both the Sprint and in Qualifying. This morning I really enjoyed the fight with Kimi (Antonelli) and gave absolutely everything to bring home some good points with second place. As for Qualifying, of course I would be happier with a repeat of yesterday, but I expected both Kimi and Charles to improve today. Once again it was incredibly close, and having both cars up there gives us more opportunities for tomorrow. We’ll look at all the options available to us and do everything we can with the strategy to fight for the best possible result for the team.

Today hasn’t been straightforward on my side. The balance of the car has been reasonably strong and I’ve felt comfortable, but we’ve been struggling with our straight-line speed. In the Sprint therefore, we ended up in a battle with the McLarens, the Red Bull of Verstappen and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. We were able to fight our way to P4, but our pace was probably strong enough to have been in the top three and chasing Lewis (Hamilton) and Kimi (Antonelli).

I had a small off in Q1 in Qualifying, but we recovered and were in the fight for pole. On my final run though I caught some traffic on my out lap and didn’t quite get the tyres in the right window. That meant that my push lap was compromised from the start and we had to settle for P4. That was frustrating but we know that we can move forward tomorrow. We will be doing everything we can to do so and get in the mix at the very front.

I have mixed feelings about the Sprint. We struggled with the start again and dropped a few places, so had to spend the race getting those back. The race pace wasn\'t all there but I managed a few overtakes and was close to getting back into the points. Onto Qualifying and I\'m definitely happy with how it went. I felt very comfortable in the car throughout the session and we improved with every run. On the last run, I went all in and ended up with a bit too much sliding, so I think there was a little more lap time on the table. P5 was probably the maximum result we could have achieved, so we will take it. We\'re still missing the pure performance to compete with Mercedes and Ferrari, but tomorrow we\'ll be in the fight with both McLarens and hopefully bring home some solid points.

It was a challenging Qualifying and, at the moment, we\'re simply too far off the pace. We seem to be losing a significant amount of time both on the straights and through the corners, which highlights the limitations of our overall package. We\'ll review all the data from every session overnight to build the clearest possible picture, but we know we need to improve and everyone at the factory and track is working incredibly hard to close the gap through our development programme.

Looking ahead to tomorrow\'s race, we have to be realistic. There may be opportunities to challenge the cars immediately ahead, but compared to the front-runners, our overall pace means it\'s unlikely we\'ll be fighting at the sharp end. That said, I was really pleased with my own performance in the Sprint to finish P3. It felt like a fantastic result given the limitations we have, and we\'ll be looking to maximise everything that\'s available to us and extract the most from the car throughout tomorrow\'s race.

It wasn’t a good Qualifying for me, everything seemed a little bit off. In the Sprint, we struggled for top speed, and going into Qualifying we made some decent changes, but the whole session we were slow on the straight and had issues with balance. We haven’t found anything that makes a difference, so we’re pretty sure there’s a problem there. It’s difficult to make sense of all the things we’ve struggled with today, and there’s a lot to understand, so let’s see how things go tomorrow.

A tougher day today. In the Sprint, we made a good start, but once the battles settled, we just didn\'t have the pace. This afternoon, we made some good set up changes, but we didn\'t quite see the benefits of them on track. The car was nervous, especially in the high-speed corners, so we just were lacking grip and pace.

Even with these challenges, we know that when we get right, we can be right up there in the fight, like yesterday, when we were just a tenth off third place. We have clear areas we need to work on to make the car more adaptable, and the team are working very hard to do that. Mercedes is clearly a step ahead right now, but we believe teams like Ferrari are not completely unbeatable, so we will keep chipping away, manage our tyres and see what we can achieve.

Overall, it was a very positive day. Driving at this circuit is always special, and the fans create an incredible atmosphere. We gathered valuable data in this morning’s Sprint ahead of tomorrow’s race and made a step forward in Qualifying thanks to a few changes we made to the car between sessions. Q1 wasn’t straightforward, but it was a great team effort to put the car in a better operating window for the rest of the session. My lap times during Qualifying were all very similar, even if there was a bit left on the table, so there are still a few areas I’ll be looking at to try and unlock a bit more performance.

We’ve had a competitive car for a good few weekends now, so I’m very grateful to the team for the incredible work they’ve done. The focus now shifts to tomorrow, when the points are on the line, and we’ll keep pushing to maintain this level of performance and come away with a strong result.

I was pretty happy with our result in the Sprint race earlier this afternoon, securing a point ahead of Qualifying. Then, while we were pleased to reach Q3, it felt as though we scraped by. We didn\'t improve our lap time from a very strong Q1, so we\'ll be taking a look at why we lost the balance throughout the session. As a team, our focus is on having a strong start tomorrow in order to push for maximum points. We\'ve had a strong package this weekend, so hopefully we\'ll make the necessary improvements to maintain our fight at the top of the midfield.

First, I want to start by thanking the team for their hard work. We suffered a small gearbox issue at the beginning of Q1, but they did a great job getting the car back together and giving me the chance to get back out on track, set a lap and make it through. In Q2, I made a mistake in Turn 6 which cost me quite a bit of time, and that was it for me - still, I think Q3 could have been possible today, and I am quite satisfied with our final position.

The Sprint itself was pretty uneventful earlier today. I struggled a bit with the start, so that\'s something we\'ll keep working on. Now, the focus shifts to tomorrow\'s race, where hopefully we can put everything together and put up a fight for the top ten.

It wasn’t the qualifying we were aiming for and I believe there was more potential than P13 today. I didn’t quite put the laps together in Q2, and on the final run I lost the tow when the car ahead pitted, which cost a bit of time on the straights.

Tomorrow is another opportunity, and if we can execute a clean race, there’s still every chance to move forward.

It was a good start in the Sprint and a good first lap, so I’m happy with that. After that, we dropped back to where we deserved to be. Audi had a poor start, and I also managed to jump the Red Bull of Isack Hadjar, who I think had an issue with deployment. After that, to be honest, not really much more I could’ve done, the Audis found their groove and eventually caught me. The first few laps were good, and then I started to struggle with my front left tire, and that was it.

In qualifying I always try to get the most out of it, and today, that’s what I think we did. It was tight in Q1, and getting into Q2, it looks like we made a clear step ahead of Williams, so that’s a positive. I don’t see a world where we’re any better than P14 really, the car has been incredibly difficult. High-speed hasn’t been the biggest challenge, I’m mainly struggling in the low- and medium-speed entry, where I have to run the car in a way I can survive those entry phases or have a compromise, where in high-speed I’m massively limited by understeer. It’s a different problem from what we’ve encountered before, and we did some studies after the Sprint to find a bit more load on the car, but it doesn’t look like it worked. I’ll do my best tomorrow, the home crowd always gives me a boost.

Our Sprint race was nothing special, stuck behind a Haas and struggling with deployment. For qualifying the wind picked up and our car was very sensitive to it, making it very challenging to drive and ultimately making us less competitive. I did some test items for the team and cross-car comparisons to see if we could find some performance, but it didn’t really work and we are still struggling to find pace. For the race, we\'ll keep collecting learnings about this new front wing and the car. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow and the target will be to maximize everything.

It\'s been a tough day for us today with a difficult Sprint Race and a challenging Qualifying session. It is a bit of a reality check for us as we are lacking pace here relative to our rivals who have been consistently too far ahead and out of reach. In the Sprint, I had a good start, up to P8, but once the Racing Bulls and Isack [Hadjar] caught us, I could not stay with them. It felt like we have made some progress from yesterday but it is not enough and we need to find much bigger steps. Tomorrow our fight will again be with Racing Bulls and Audi. We learnt a few things from the Sprint which we will aim to implement in the race and see if we can take the fight to both of them for some points. It will be tough, but it is usually a long, challenging race here where anything can happen.

Today was pretty much what we expected. We made some setup changes so we started from the pit lane for the Sprint to learn more about the car and go in some different directions. It was productive; we picked up some useful information, both positive and negative. We\'d qualified P15 and P16 yesterday, same as today, so it felt like a good chance to test a few ideas. The other midfield teams have all brought significant upgrades, and our upgrade isn\'t coming until Baku, so we can only improve so much for now. The focus has been on experimenting and gathering data until then. We\'ve struggled a bit in low speed, but the high speed has been better than it was in Austria and Barcelona. 

On the plus side, this is probably the best the car has felt – maybe the front wing helped there, though the simulator always promises a bit more than we\'re getting. Tomorrow won\'t be easy for anyone with the windy conditions, and we\'re hoping reliability plays a part too. For us, it\'ll be a battle with the Haas rather than the Alpines.

We had a mega start in the Sprint, but I had to back off as the gap really closed in front. I could’ve gained more positions than that on the start, but had to back off. After that we overtook Carlos and both Audi drivers and we were fighting a lot through the first laps, but eventually, I had to give the places back to the Audi drivers as they were too fast for us. Another lap and I think I would’ve lost the place to Carlos as well. Then in the qualifying, it\'s incredibly frustrating what happened on that last lap – even more when it\'s because of a yellow flag and I was the only car that had to go by that single yellow.

The team did a mega job giving me a very good car. It was more of a step forward than where we were in Sprint qualifying and where we\'ve been in the last three to four races. The car was healthy and it was going well, we were in front of the competition and we were through until that last run when I had to back off a good two tenths. I lost out on the exit as well as you don\'t recharge the same way by going slow at that point. The car felt very good, much better rear grip, and we could go through the high-speed section quite decently. It was nice, I wanted to have the next two sets in Q2 to see where we could\'ve been though.

One of the better Qualifying sessions for me this year. We maximized the session and didn’t leave much more on the table with a good last run. We improved the setup of the car from yesterday\'s Quali and today’s Sprint. The changes felt better in Qualifying with the balance, but they should be more suited to tomorrow’s race so let’s see what’s possible.

With the work the team put in between the sessions and the improved feeling with the car, particularly in the low and medium speed corners, it was disappointing to end the day the way we did. We raced well in the Sprint and the car felt more competitive on high fuel, but not enough to fight with the Racing Bulls. It gives us some hope for tomorrow and hopefully we can make up some places. The wind picked up in the afternoon and made it more tricky in Qualifying, but ultimately it was the same conditions for everyone. I lost the rear going through Becketts and it took me completely by surprise. It wasn\'t something I felt or experienced at that corner before, which is normally flat with these cars. It was quite unusual, so we need to understand from the data what might have caused the snap at the rear. We\'ll do our best tomorrow knowing it will be a challenging race from where we\'re starting. It\'s a fun track to race at, so let\'s hope we can have some nice battles and see where we end up.

We used the Sprint this morning as a learning opportunity after the incident with Fernando [Alonso]. I did apologize to him for that one, but luckily he didn’t lose much. In Qualifying I struggled with my high-speed balance so we made a lot of changes and on one of them something happened that gave me no front end grip through the fast sections, which hurt me quite a lot. All the same we have good information for tomorrow and hopefully we can be quite a bit stronger in the race and in the mix for the midfield. There will be a lot happening and we just need to be there at the right time as there can be opportunities.

We didn\'t get the set-up right for the Sprint this morning, but we made some changes and got it in a better window for Qualifying. I felt happier in the car. We\'re still not where we want to be and so it doesn\'t count for much, but it felt like a good lap.

It’s another difficult Qualifying session for us with the car exactly the same as recent race weekends. This is our position right now, but we do have some positives to take away, with good deployment and energy management. We’ve also had good starts as we showed again in the Sprint earlier today. Everyone is working hard to improve, so we’ll see what we can learn tomorrow.