Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

Ihr könnt euch nicht vorstellen, wie aufgeregt ich bin. Nach dem Rennen bekam ich dieses Gefühl. Ich denke an all die verschiedenen Erfahrungen, die ich gemacht habe, und all die Menschen, die mir auf meinem Weg geholfen haben: Meine Familie, ohne die ich heute nicht hier wäre, und an jeden anderen, der mir geholfen hat - sie wissen, wen ich meine. Als ich heute hier ankam, wusste ich, dass Nico im Qualifying eine starke Leistung gezeigt hatte. Deswegen benötigte ich einen guten Start. Es war sehr eng in der ersten Kurve, aber danach war es einfach ein wundervoller Tag. Ich habe in jedem Jahr auf dieser Strecke Probleme gehabt. Aber ich habe sie immer geliebt. Wenn die Balance stimmt, das Auto macht, was du willst, und du in den Kurven angreifen kannst, gibt es einfach kein besseres Gefühl. Die Ingenieure und jeder in der Box haben großartig gearbeitet. Wir hatten nach dem Training nicht viele Daten, die wir analysieren konnten, aber das Auto fühlte sich unglaublich an. Ich bin dem Team wirklich sehr dankbar, denn ohne sie wäre ich nicht hier. Auch möchte ich meinen Fans danken, die mich den gesamten Weg über unterstützt haben - und es geht noch weiter.

Ein harter Tag für mich. Es war sehr eng gegen Lewis in der Kurve und am Kurvenausgang musste ich die Strecke verlassen, um eine Kollision zu vermeiden. Dadurch verlor ich an Geschwindigkeit und fiel bis auf Platz vier zurück. Danach kämpfte ich heute anstelle des Sieges um Platz zwei. Aber ich konnte angreifen und Valtteri überholen. Das war super. Das Team hat auch großartige Arbeit mit dem Undercut gegen Sebastian geleistet. Mit einer richtig harten Out-Lap auf den neuen Reifen hat das perfekt funktioniert. Der zweite Platz ist Schadensbegrenzung, denn ich hätte hier in Japan gewinnen müssen, um den Abstand zu Lewis zu verringern. Ich werde dennoch weiter pushen und versuche jetzt, in Sotschi zu gewinnen. An diesem Wochenende gab es viel Positives. Deshalb werde ich stark zurückkommen.

All in all, today there is plenty of reasons to be happy with third place. At the second round of pit-stops, we were surprised by the outlap that Nico pulled. I guess we thought the gap was big enough, so you can’t say we made a mistake. But in the end it’s a bit of a shame when you cross the line; I think that if we could have stayed ahead it would have been difficult for Nico to pass, as around there it is not so easy to get close, and we saw that he struggled a long time with Bottas. But we have to accept that Mercedes were just a bit quicker and for this reason they deserved to be ahead. Nevertheless, third and fourth is a great result for the team. We got good points, and it was a strong recovery after a difficult Saturday morning.

Today we did the maximum we could and, considering where we had started the race from, fourth position is the best we could get. The car was OK and we had the right speed, but on a circuit like this, when you are stuck behind other cars, it’s always hard to overtake. We did a good job at the pit stop, managed to jump Bottas on the way out, and chose the right tires at the right time. I don’t think we could have done much more. This kind of track is not the best for us right now, but it seems things have worked well today. There’s still work to be done, but we are doing the right things and going in the right direction. Obviously, we always want to be at the top, but I think we have done an amazing job all year long and since last year. Now we keep doing the same progresses and try to improve. We take what we have got today and go to the next race trying to do the maximum.

Not a perfect day for us, but we will take the ten points. I was hoping for a podium, but the pace wasn’t as good as we had expected. Defending from the quicker cars was hard and I think we should have pitted earlier for the final stop, but it’s always easier to say that after the race.

A great result today and realistically sixth was the maximum we could achieve when you remember that I started from P13. I made a really good start and jumped a couple of cars away from the line, and then stayed on the inside going into turn one, which turned out to be a good decision. By turn two I was up in eighth, close up behind the Lotuses and actually they were holding me up during the first stint. The team pitted me early to undercut them and we then out-raced them with our stronger pace. It was a lonely race for me, but effective and the result is very welcome. The team did a great job today and I think we deserved these eight points.

We finished with both cars in the points so I'm definitely happy with that! When it came to my own race we were a little bit slow against the Force India. We tried to fight Nico Hulkenberg but couldn't. I really struggled with the tyres at the end – it seems the new Pirelli limits hurt us more than our rivals so we'll work around that for the next race. Overall though, we've had a good result as a team.

It was a good race for us and we really deserved a happy result today after pushing hard all weekend. It's a shame we weren't able to keep Hulkenberg behind us so we'll review the strategy and performance to see if there was more we could have done. The team has been united all weekend, we scored some nice points and we're looking forward to the rest of the season.

It was a great race! I think the start was good and I was able to overtake Nasr straight away in Sector 1, even though he got me back in the hairpin because I got a bit blocked and I didn't want to take too many risks! That was a shame, because I then got stuck behind him for quite a lot of laps and lost some time with the other cars ahead... But after my first pit-stop I was able to push again until I got stuck behind Kvyat first, then Alonso. But I didn't give up and in the end we were able to end up in front, which is very positive. To go from P17 to P9 at a track like this one is a good result and I'm happy to have scored points again, it was a very good day!

It was a good race until the mistake in the pit entry and I even think it was being one of my best races so far this year. It was a good first stint on the Options and an even better one on the Primes, I was really flying, catching the cars in front. Then it got to the point that it was simply impossible to overtake the Lotus on track, so we decided to go for the undercut. The team told me to do the opposite to Maldonado, and it looked like he was going to pit so I was meant to stay out on track, but he suddenly continued on track and I was so aggressive on the turn into the pit entry that I hit the bollard and damaged my front wing. I therefore lost some time during the pit-stop and if it was already meant to be a final long stint, it became an even longer one behind Perez, who was slow in the corners but fast on the straights. I destroyed my tyres behind him and in the end it was all about making sure I brought the car back home. The team did a very good job and I'm sure that we would've finished higher than P10 if it hadn't been for my mistake – a rookie error that I will learn from. All in all, I'm pleased with my first Japanese Grand Prix!

“It’s difficult when you have other drivers overtaking you along the straights, then you arrive at the corners, and watch them outbrake themselves, or make mistakes. Then, when you take the corner perfectly, and get overtaken again along the straights, it feels frustrating. “We need to improve the programme. The remaining races will be tough, but we’re looking towards next year. We’ll win together, and we need to make it happen as quickly as possible. “Hopefully, we can learn some lessons from today’s race and keep improving things.”

Twelfth place is a very disappointing outcome for a weekend that had started really well. Unfortunately, my race was an uphill battle from the first corner: I saw Massa going slowly in the centre of the track and had to avoid him, and that's when I got the hit [from Sainz]. We tried to recover and I did all I could to get back into the points, but even our best was not enough. It's a shame as our pace was really good, but with no safety car or any other incidents, the points were too far away. It was still a good result for the team with Nico scoring points, something that will help us with our championship battle.

It was pretty boring for me out there this afternoon, because a combination of circumstances meant I had to just sit back and was unable to attack. I had a completely new car, so that wasn’t so easy. We had difficulties with the tyres, the brakes and the overtake button, which made life complicated. In the end, I did manage to overtake some people, but it wasn’t great. It’s frustrating and annoying, but there was nothing I could do. Battling for P13 does not give you much satisfaction. But a big thank you to the team, they had a lot of work to do on Saturday night to get the car ready for the race.

Mir gelang ein guter Start. Und speziell vor dem ersten Stopp konnte ich gut mithalten und war Zehnter. Gegen Ende dieses ersten Rennabschnitts war ich etwas zu schnell in Kurve 13 unterwegs, was zu einem halben Dreher und Zeitverlust führte. Das war schade. Mit dem frühen zweiten Stopp versuchten wir noch Boden gutzumachen. Allen war bewusst, dass das auf harten Reifen ein langer Abschnitt wird. Dabei konnte ich einige Konkurrenten so lange hinter mir lassen, bis meine Hinterreifen mehr und mehr an Haftung verloren haben. Ich denke, dass wir heute eine bessere Performance hatten, als es das Resultat zeigt. Dennoch sind da noch Dinge, die wir verbessern müssen.

At the start, the best line for me was straight down the middle. I saw the gap between Kimi and Felipe and I knew it was close, but I thought they would make a bit of room. I haven’t seen the footage and don’t want to put the blame on anyone so we’ll call it a racing incident for now. It’s a shame for the team, I think we could have gained some positions off the line and then the race would have been completely different. But we had the puncture, and that damaged the floor so we lost some downforce. I tried to do what I could, we started to catch some cars towards the end but by then I didn’t have the grip to do anything. On a positive note, even with the damaged floor, the car was handling well.

“When there’s that much of a speed differential between our car and the others’, you don’t know what to do. When they overtake you, you just back out of it – there’s such a difference in speed, that you can’t be sure where they’re going to be. “At my second stop, Ericsson got past me, and that messed up my race because I was quicker, and had the better tyre – I was on the Option, he was on the Prime – for the final stint. “If I’d come out ahead of him, we’d have been fine, because we were quicker than him, and he was holding cars up behind, which helped Fernando to run his own race. But I couldn’t keep the faster cars behind me, and fell farther back. “It’s been a tough weekend in front of the whole of Honda and all the fans we have here; and that’s tough, because we want to succeed in front of them.”

A very tough day for me today right from the first lap. I had a bad start and then had contact with Ricciardo and it took me a long time to get back to the pits. From there it was the end of the race barring any miracle. We have scored some decent points for the Constructors’ Championship with Valtteri’s fifth but I had the car to contribute a good haul of points as well. We have to regroup and get those points back at the next race.

It was a tough race today but I'm very happy with the outcome. I struggled a little more in the first stint, but after the first stop everything turned around and my pace was pretty good. I was right on the tail of my team-mate throughout the second two stints, and was trying to get past when Will spun. Thankfully, I was able to get out of the way, but it was a real heart-in-mouth moment that I'm sure looked every bit as dramatic from outside the cockpit as it did from where I was sitting! All in all, I'm pleased with how things are going after two races and glad we had a good race after a difficult weekend.

It goes without saying that I'm disappointed with the result today. I felt I was in control up until the point of the penalty and then the spin, and that's where I lost the advantage. It's a shame, as my pace was strong all weekend, so that's what I'm focusing on and I'm looking forward to getting things back on track in Russia. I'm pleased for what is a good team result though, and that is what we were targeting here.

Das Rennen begann gut. Beim Start konnte ich einige Plätze gutmachen. Danach hatte ich schöne Zweikämpfe und Überholmanöver bis zum ersten Stopp. Plötzlich aber fühlte sich das Auto nicht mehr gut an. Deshalb entschieden wir knapp vor Schluss, in die Box zu fahren und das Rennen zu beenden. Nun müssen wir uns alles anschauen, um den Grund dafür zu finden.