Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

Das war ein perfektes Wochenende hier in Spanien. Wir hatten ein fantastisches Auto und jeder hat in der Pause großartig gearbeitet. Vielen Dank dafür an das gesamte Team. Mein Start war zum ersten Mal in dieser Saison super. Danach konnte ich die Pace kontrollieren und fühlte mich während des gesamten Rennens nie in Gefahr. Ich bin überglücklich über diesen Sieg. Es ist noch früh in der Saison. Entsprechend ist es gut, den Abstand zu Lewis verkleinert zu haben. Jetzt werde ich weiter hart pushen, beginnend mit meinem Heimrennen in Monaco! 

Ich hatte einen schwachen Start mit zu viel Wheelspin und musste deshalb hart kämpfen, um Platz drei zu behalten. Danach war es hart, da es schwierig ist, direkt hinter einem anderen Auto herzufahren. Noch schwieriger ist es aber, es zu überholen. Ich blieb vor dem ersten Stopp nah genug an Seb dran, aber leider haben wir dabei etwas Zeit verloren. Letztlich entschieden wir uns für eine Drei-Stopp-Strategie, um etwas anderes auszuprobieren. Diese Entscheidung trafen wir schon recht früh, als klar war, dass es nicht funktionieren würde, so lange draußen zu bleiben. Und wie gesagt, Überholen war auf der Strecke nahezu unmöglich. Zum Glück hatten wir die Pace, um den Plan umzusetzen. Nico lag 15 Runden vor Schluss 22 Sekunden vor mir - das ist ein großer Vorsprung. Ich griff bis ungefähr sechs Runden vor dem Ende richtig hart an, aber ich machte dabei nur rund eine Sekunde pro Runde gut - das war nicht genug. Insgesamt war es Schadensbegrenzung an einem schwierigen Wochenende für mich. Aber ich bin dankbar, dass ich heute eine gute Punkteausbeute für das Team einfahren konnte.

All in all, I think third is the best we could do for the pace we had. I don’t think there’s anything wrong, it think it was just something coming together and maybe this is not the best week end for us in terms of competitiveness, but I believe it’s probably more down to conditions rather then something being wrong with the car. For some reasons we didn’t find the same rhythm of the last two events, but I’m sure that in a couple of races we’ll come back stronger. In terms of strategy, we went for two stops because we thought it would have been the best choice for the race: we have to be fair and accept the fact that Mercedes was the best team today. I think we’re going in the right direction. We know that there is a gap, but we’re fighting very hard to close it. Unfortunately we didn’t make a big step this race, but I’m pretty confident we’ll make it soon

It feels good to split the Ferraris for a second race in a row and this has been another solid points haul for the team. Tyre life was better than we expected and as a result we changed from a three-stop to a two-stop race, which was a good strategic choice from the team because it allowed me to keep Räikkönen behind. The big positive is that we were closer to the leaders than we have been at any point this season. That gives me a lot of hope because we have shown that the updates we are bringing are improving our performance. I want to thank all the team here and in Grove for providing me with a great car to go racing with, and I’d also like to thank Mercedes HPP as they continue to push hard on the power unit to help us keep our competitors at bay.

Overall, it has been a difficult weekend, but non a disaster and we learned a lot. In the race today we gained a few places, but I was not very comfortable with my car, as it was sliding around. Besides that, and for whatever reason, we are able catch the Williams but it’s very difficult to overtake them: they are very fast down the straights and once we get behind them, our car starts to be difficult to handle, much more than when you’re following other lapped cars. About the choice of going back to the ‘old’ aero package, I think it was good for all of us to be able to compare them on the circuit and I was prepared to run the risk. Maybe it would have been better with the new bits, that is probably the case, but at least now we know about it. So, for the next races, we have to do a better job and we need to have more clean weekends, without any issue, even a small one, to make sure that everything works. We know where we have to improve

It was a good race for the team, scoring 20 points, not losing too much to Ferrari, but also getting a lot more than Red Bull which is really important and positive for our championship position. I managed to overtake cars on the first lap and then fought hard with Kimi (Räikkönen) for a long time, which was hard on the tyres. Because of the extra degradation a three-stop race was better for me today, but it meant the others were too far ahead. We finished with one car in front of a Ferrari so we have shown that we can be competitive with them and we can now look forward to Monaco which will be a very different test for the car.

I am more satisfied today as we achieved everything we could and seventh was the maximum I could get out of the car," said Daniel after the race. "There were some parts of the race that were encouraging but we're still further off than where we want to be, but we'll keep pushing. We came here with upgrades this weekend but they didn't give us what we were expecting, so that's something we'll keep working on. We're still a fair bit behind Williams at the moment but I think we have a good chance to close the gap a bit further in Monaco.

It was a tough and eventful race. Firstly, I’m glad to say that no-one was seriously injured in the pit stop. The rear tyres were experiencing a lot of degradation and I just couldn’t stop in time. It was a really scary moment for me, but probably more scary for the crew. I checked everyone was okay and I certainly owe them some beers! In the race, I lost fourth gear during the race which made things a bit of a challenge. It was a tough race but it’s good to be in the points for the third race in a row and we can be proud for what we’ve achieved today.

It was a tricky start to today's race and I was a bit disappointed when I saw that the fifth position from which I had started from didn't last much. But I kept my head down, started to save my tyres early in the race, as I know that our car behaves better with lower fuel, and I managed to extend my stint a bit on the Prime tyres. That enabled me to go for it during the final five laps and go for the last two points. It was a tricky moment: I had DRS and managed to get ahead of Daniil before Turn 1 and crossed the line in ninth position. It's good to add another two points to the team's tally at my first home race.

"We didn't have enough pace today," said Dany. "I had a poor opening lap, dropping a few places and from then on that compromised my race. Because here at this track, if you lose places at the start, it's almost game over, as it is so hard to get close enough to pass. I had a nice battle with Sainz towards the end. We need to improve the car in every area at the moment. On the positive side, both our cars finished the race, which is good on the reliability front. This was a bad day for me, so now I just want to look ahead to Monaco in the hope we can be more competitive there."

It was a difficult race today. It was very hard for the rear tyres. In addition to this, having to deal with blue flags at the end of the race also put me in a difficult position. It wasn't the race we expected after a very strong qualifying session yesterday.

Es war ein schwieriges Rennen. Im Vergleich zu unseren direkten Konkurrenten waren unsere Rundenzeiten auf den Medium- sowie harten Reifen nicht schnell genug. Uns fehlt weiterhin etwas Abtrieb, was dazu führte, dass wir gewisse Nachteile im Rennen hatten. Der Wechsel von einer Drei-Stopp auf eine Zwei-Stopp-Strategie war die richtige Entscheidung. Aus meiner Sicht habe ich das Maximum aus dem Auto herausgeholt. Mehr als der 12. Platz war heute aus eigener Kraft nicht möglich.

Considering where I qualified, we probably maximised our race today. Maybe a three-stop strategy would have been a little bit better, but it wouldn't have made much difference in the end. My last stint was really on the limit - nearly 30 laps on the same set of mediums - but we managed them well and I was able to control Ericsson who was putting pressure on me. Once again we showed today that our car is more suited to Sundays, so if we can improve our qualifying pace we can definitely fight for points at the next few races.

Mit dem 14. Platz können wir nicht zufrieden sein. Dennoch glaube ich, dass wir an diesem Wochenende all unsere derzeitigen Möglichkeiten ausgeschöpft haben. Ich hatte zwar einen akzeptablen Rennstart, blieb im Anschluss aber für einige Runden im Verkehr stecken. Es ist schade, dass wir insbesondere bei meinem ersten Boxenstopp etwas Zeit verloren haben. Wir müssen sicherstellen, es in den nächsten Rennen besser zu machen, und ich bin zuversichtlich, dass wir das auch tun werden. Nun müssen wir uns auf die Testfahrten in den kommenden Tagen fokussieren. Dabei werden wir alles tun, um das Auto für die nächsten Rennen weiterzuentwickeln.

It was always going to be difficult to score points today, especially on a track where it’s so difficult to overtake. I was always stuck behind other cars and, even with better pace, you lose too much performance running in the dirty air. My three-stop race was the more aggressive approach, but we didn’t have the track position to make the most of it. Maybe things would have worked out better if I had run in some clean air, but points were too far away today. Hopefully we can be more competitive in Monaco. It’s often an unusual race and we will have completely different tyre compounds, which should suit us better.

"My car was pretty scary to drive today: as soon as I touched the throttle, the car just snapped away from me. It was unpredictable: in low-speed corners, the car was just slow, because I got wheelspin immediately; in the high-speed stuff, it was just scary, because the rear end would snap away immediately under power. "I was talking to my engineers for most of the race to try to find out what the root of the problem was, and we switched on quite a lot of handling balance changes to try to cure it. It got a little bit better towards the end of the afternoon, but it was a pretty tough afternoon. "Now, we’ll thoroughly look at the data and see what the matter was – it’s something we’ve got to look into."

It’s good to finish another race with both cars. From a set-up and car balance point of view, this was probably our best race yet, so a good result for the team. I didn’t get the best start and I was behind Roberto for the first 12 laps. After I passed him, I pushed as much as I could. I’m looking forward to Monaco now, which I think is a track that will suit our car a little more.

I’m pleased we achieved another two car finish for the team. The reliability of the car is obviously very good but we have to find some more performance. I got a good start and managed to get ahead of Will and stay there for 12 laps but we were on different tyre management strategies. On my second set of tyres I had a flat-spot and as that was a long stint I lost a lot of time. I’m happy to finish my first home race though and to have a good team result here in Spain.

“My pitstop was a scary moment – I didn’t have much rear braking for my whole in-lap, then even less at the stop. It was scary for the mechanics, but luckily it didn’t hurt anyone. “My brake issue was separate from Jenson’s problem yesterday; in qualifying, he had a single disc that wasn’t reaching temperature, but I had no brakes. I think the rear disc stopped working, so I only had front brakes. “Things are coming together. We’re still a long way off the front and need to take bigger steps, but this is a very challenging project and I’m happy that we’re recovering well. “This has been a disappointing day, but the team will investigate what happened, and we’ll come back stronger in Monaco.”

We were having a pretty great race at the start and our strategy was working well but then the damage to my car meant that I had to make an extra stop and my race was completely compromised. For sure, we have the pace in the car and in every race we have shown the potential to be in the points so it’s only a matter of time before we get a good result; I’m looking forward to Monaco.