Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

Wow, was für ein Tag! Es fühlt sich super an, wieder in Österreich gewonnen zu haben. Es ist eine besondere Strecke, sehr knifflig und mit fantastischen Zuschauern. Nach meinem Fehler gestern im Qualifying war ich fest entschlossen, richtig hart zu pushen, um dieses Rennen zu gewinnen. Ich hatte einen guten Start und übernahm in Kurve eins die Führung. Das war sehr wichtig, da ich aus den vergangenen Rennen in diesem Jahr wusste, dass es sehr schwierig ist, das gleiche Auto auf der Strecke zu überholen. Nachdem ich Lewis passiert hatte, konnte ich meine Führung kontrollieren. Gegen Ende spürte ich einige Vibrationen am rechten Vorderrad, aber ich schaffte es bis ins Ziel. Vielen Dank an mein Team für dieses großartige Auto und ein perfektes Rennen. Jetzt freue ich mich auf Silverstone. Daran habe ich dank meiner Pole aus dem vergangenen Jahr und meines Sieges 2013 schöne Erinnerungen.

Es war ein geradliniges Rennen, in dem ich nicht den besten Start hatte. Ich hatte ein Problem mit der Drehzahl. Als ich vom Gas ging, blieb die Drehzahl oben. Als ich dann die Kupplung losließ, hatte ich zu viel Wheelspin und verlor an Boden. Das werden wir uns nach dem Rennen ansehen. Danach hielt ich im ersten Stint mit Nico mit. Aber in der zweiten Phase hatte er einfach eine bessere Pace. Am Ende ging es nur noch darum, es nach Hause zu fahren. Aber Nico hat den Sieg verdient. Herzlichen Glückwunsch an ihn.

I am delighted with the result, the team did a great job and it was a fantastic race. We made the most of the slower Ferrari pitstop and took all the opportunities that came to us to achieve my first podium of the year. The team were pushing me a lot throughout the final stages of the race and I was doing my best to keep Vettel behind. I knew it was not the time to make mistakes and it was amazing to bring it home.

The issue during the pit-stop is something that can happen: I had a problem, but generally the guys are the quickest on the pit lane so there’s nobody to blame. We are a team and when you push to the limit these things can occur. I would have preferred to get the trophy for third place of course, but we’ll come back next year with the same objective. The car was very good, I think we made another step ahead and we had a great pace. This is a very short lap so there’s not so much to create, but in the next races there are more high speed corners and we can better show that we’re a bit closer even if today’s result doesn’t show so well. In the last part of the race I’ve tried to stay close to Felipe, but he was very quick on the straights. Today was a bit disappointing because we’ve lost the podium, but I’m sure tomorrow it will be better and we’ll focus on the next race: the team in Maranello is very committed to this and they’re all working hard.

It is a good result for the team. I was hoping for a bit more from the race personally. I enjoyed the overtaking that I made, it was just a shame it wasn’t further up. Midway through the race I had a brake issue which I had to manage a bit. We have closed the gap to the team in front in the constructor’s championship which is a good feeling. Well done to Felipe on a great result to get on the podium.

I’m very satisfied with sixth place today. Going into the race we always knew it would be difficult to keep the Williams of Bottas behind me, so bringing the car home in sixth was probably the maximum we could achieve. I had some good wheel-to-wheel battles with him and we swapped places a few times, but it was hard to match their absolute pace. Overall it’s been a great weekend: I found a nice rhythm and I have been very happy with the performance of the car. With Checo in the points as well, it’s been an excellent weekend for us and we can be proud of what we’ve achieved. It’s an important boost ahead of Silverstone where we hope to make another step forward.

It’s great to get another seventh position and the points that come with it. It was a big moment fighting with Max. The super soft tyres were very hot so losing their grip and you lose a lot of downforce close to the car ahead, but everything was under control! I wanted to get the position and I think we deserved it. It seems like we’re coming into a good time of the season for us so we’ll all keep working hard to continue scoring points.

I’m happy with today’s race, I think we did everything we could and had some good fights. I enjoyed every lap to be honest! The car worked really well and especially the last few laps were quite exciting. We were very close to ending in P7, but I’m very happy with P8, it’s a great result for the whole team. We’ve learned more about the tyres and I think that the updates we brought are positive, so all in all, everything felt really good in the race today. I’m also happy to have finally scored some more points, especially here at the Red Bull Ring

It is a great result for the team to come away with so many points. We’ve moved up to fifth in the championship and that's an incredible effort by everyone in the team. I had a great start and first lap: the target was to get ahead of Maldonado as he was the first driver on the prime tyre and we managed to do that. In the first stint I had a lot of pressure from both the Lotus drivers, but we held strong and the race was looking really good. Unfortunately, we lost some time in a slow pit stop and it was a bit difficult to recover after that, especially as that placed us behind Ericsson and Nasr. The second stint was not very easy because I had some very strong vibrations on the front tyres and that cost me some pace. All in all, considering our position on the grid, it was a good race. I think we could have been a couple of places ahead if everything had gone to plan, but it's still a good result.

"I was pleased with the car during the race. I was trying to push as much as I could towards the end to catch Perez but the boys behind me were fighting for the podium and I had to respect that," he said afterwards. "I was really happy with the option tyre, the balance of the car worked well. To finish 10th is a good result from where we started today. I'm staying on here for a day's testing this week and I hope that despite the bad weather forecast we'll be able to get some useful work done before the next round in Silverstone."

Ein enttäuschendes Rennen. Meine Bremsen überhitzten, was dazu führte, dass ich meine Position nicht verteidigen konnte. In Anbetracht unserer Startplätze haben wir erwartet, in die Punkte zu fahren. Ich habe alles versucht, aber es hat leider nicht geklappt. Wir müssen nun eine Lösung finden, damit wir solche Möglichkeiten nicht erneut vergeben.

"It was a very tough race today. The front wing was damaged on the first lap and from then on my race was massively compromised," he said. "The bodywork damage affected the grip for the entire race which made the car difficult to drive. I think points were possible today if it hadn't been for the damage, so that's disappointing."

Die Probleme begannen schon beim Start, als ich einen Frühstart verursachte. Gleich darauf konnte ich nicht mehr ausweichen und überfuhr Trümmerteile, die meinen Front- und Heckflügel beschädigten. So musste ich früh im Rennen zum ersten Boxenstopp. Doch auch mit einer neuen Frontpartie blieb meine Performance beeinträchtigt. Danach hatte ich noch Schwierigkeiten mit der Elektronik. Nach einem zweimaligen Neustart konnte ich wieder weiterfahren.

I’m very happy with 14th place today, the best result for me and the team so far this season. We have had a strong weekend overall and it was really good to see our improved pace continuing into the race today. It meant that I was able to stay with the cars ahead for quite some time in the first stint, so it was a nice race for me and it feels like I have some real momentum now and also with the car performance. It’s a real shame we didn’t get both cars to the finish but it’s nice to go into the team’s home race off the back of a good result. I’m looking forward to Silverstone.

I was really enjoying it out there today, I was having a lot of fun, especially after those first few laps where everything went perfectly. I was just focused on moving forward, targeting the rivals in front. We were doing a very good race but unfortunately, after the pit-stop I ran out of power all of a sudden and my race finished there. It’s very disappointing, especially because we had managed to get into the top ten after only a couple of laps and I was very motivated. I think we could’ve achieved a positive result if this hadn’t happened, we certainly had the pace for it!

“I got a good start, and made up a lot of places into Turn One and Turn Two. Kimi ahead of me had started on the Prime tyre, and he exited Turn Two with a lot of wheelspin – I went to overtake him and he lost the car to the left, and that’s exactly where I was – so we both went into the wall. Luckily, we’re both fine. It was a strange incident, because he lost the car in fifth gear, so it must have been very low grip. “We just need teamwork to keep us going: our expectations are clearly higher than what we’re currently achieving, but we’re moving in the right direction. I’m optimistic because I know our fortunes will change very soon.”

“Nothing was broken on my car, but something was wrong – and the switch-changes didn’t make any difference. So the team took the decision to retire the car – we’d fitted a brand new engine this weekend, and we didn’t want to unnecessarily damage it, so we decided to stop. “Silverstone will be another step forward. Hopefully, we’ll have got rid of our issues so I can have a stronger race in front of my home crowd. And, after that, Hungary is a circuit that should suit us, so we can get a good result there. “In times like these, you’ve just got to stay positive. Everybody back at the factory listens to our post-race interviews, and both Fernando and I want to keep everyone motivated. We’re in a good place, because we know what this package can achieve, so hopefully everyone will continue to stay strong.”

I don’t know exactly what happened before the crash, I had some wheelspin in an unusual place. I was at a quite high speed, suddenly went left and end up there. I did not see anything coming, everything happened very quickly. Unfortunately at that time my race was over, it has been a poor weekend, now we have to think about next one.

Of course it’s disappointing to retire from the race. We had good potential after the pit stop and it was good to be able to pass some cars with some side-by-side action. We were P8 when we retired and the car was feeling good. I just lost my gears and there was nothing we could do other than retire. Let’s hope our bad luck is behind us as we head to Silverstone confident of showing well again.

A really disappointing end to what has been a positive weekend, but as the problem was a result of debris damaging the car, it’s just one of those things unfortunately. I just have to take all the positives from here and roll them into the next one, which is of course our home race at Silverstone. We’ve shown some good pace this weekend, so I hope we can repeat that in two weeks’ time.