Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

Das war das mit Abstand beste Wochenende des ganzen Jahres! Ich konnte es nicht glauben, als es zu Beginn des Rennens anfing zu regnen. Ich dachte mir nur: „Ist das wirklich wahr?“ Das macht es für alle so viel schwieriger. Ich konnte das Safety Car gar nicht richtig sehen. Es fuhr sehr langsam und meine Bremsen kühlten viel zu stark ab. Deshalb versuchte ich, sie aufzuheizen und urplötzlich schoss ich genau auf das Heck zu! Gott sei Dank konnte ich noch ausweichen! Zum Glück ist das noch einmal gut gegangen. Danach fühlte ich mich unter den nassen Bedingungen großartig. Ein riesiges Dankeschön an alle im Team, die so fantastische Arbeit abgeliefert haben. Unsere Performance war an diesem Wochenende außergewöhnlich. Die Ingenieure und Mechaniker haben großartige Arbeit geleistet. Noch einmal vielen Dank an sie alle. Und dann die Zuschauermenge... wo kamen die bloß alle her? Das war absolut unglaublich! In keinem Land der Welt ist es auch nur annähernd so. Das ist für mich der beste Beweis dafür, was für eine Leidenschaft wir Briten für diesen Sport besitzen – egal wie das Wetter ist. Es gießt in Strömen und die Jungs sitzen da und sagen nur: „Yeah, wir lieben es!“ Das geht ehrlich gesagt über meine wildesten Träume hinaus. Als ich noch jünger war, habe ich nicht gesehen, was es alles bedeutet, ein Formel 1-Fahrer zu sein. Ich bewunderte einfach nur das Racing. Erst als ich älter wurde, begann ich es zu verstehen. Ich möchte einfach die Erfolge einfahren und sie genießen. Denn eines Tages werde ich einem anderen Fahrer, hoffentlich einem jungen Briten, dabei zusehen, wie er hier gewinnt. Bis dahin möchte ich das Beste aus diesen Momenten machen. Vorerst ist es aber meine Zeit – unsere Zeit. Vielen Dank an jeden da draußen. Es war absolut unglaublich.

“I felt like I had great pace today so once the track dried up I just tried to have a go. In the beginning I had a lot of spray so it was hard to see where I was going, especially in the first sector. Once I passed Nico I felt like I was closing on Lewis but then he pitted for slicks. We maybe stayed out one lap too long but in the end the race was great and the car was working really well. I had a great battle again with Nico afterwards but as it dried the Mercedes just had too much speed on the straights. I tried to keep up and there was no pressure from behind so I just concentrated on doing my own race. I had a few moments in Turn 1 which was a bit tricky so I had to be careful there but I hear a few others also struggled. The move on the outside at Becketts was fun, he was finding the inside so I thought let’s try the outside. It was a risky move for sure. The car had the grip and I had the feeling so it worked well. There’s a bit of run off there anyway so I had room if it went wrong. In the end we only finished roughly eight seconds behind so I think that is really positive going forwards and shows we are closing the gap. The fans here were great, I couldn’t believe how loud they were and they really supported me. Understandably they were behind Lewis but they got behind me loads also which was great to see.”

Lewis hat das gesamte Wochenende über bessere Arbeit abgeliefert und verdient gewonnen. Herzlichen Glückwunsch an ihn. Ich bin froh, dass ich das Rennen beenden konnte. Denn die Getriebeprobleme am Ende waren sehr ernst. Ich hätte das Auto beinahe abstellen müssen. Aber zum Glück konnte ich es beheben. Insgesamt hatte ich ein großartiges Gefühl auf der Strecke. Meine Pace auf den Medium-Reifen war super. Der Zweikampf mit Max hat viel Spaß gemacht. Es dauerte ein wenig, aber dann konnte ich ihn außen herum überholen. Die Atmosphäre war am ganzen Wochenende hier in Silverstone außergewöhnlich. Okay, ich weiß, dass einige Jungs da draußen mich nicht ganz so sehr mögen wie Lewis. Aber das ist in seinem Heimatland normal. Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass die Mehrzahl mich sehr gut unterstützt hat. Deswegen sind die Briten die besten und leidenschaftlichsten Rennfans der Welt. Vielen Dank dafür, dass ihr das Wochenende zu so einem super Event gemacht habt. Jetzt freue ich mich auf die letzten beiden Rennen vor der Sommerpause, unter anderem mein Heimrennen in Deutschland.

“I think for the team and for the points it was really good. Obviously we gained a bit on Ferrari which is nice, but for me it was lonely and a bit boring. We lost a lot of time with the Virtual Safety Car and that was just bad luck. This was out of our hands and there’s nothing we could have done different. It just came at the wrong time for me and we lost the position to Perez and then more than ten seconds behind the leaders. Then not stopping again for the rest of the race you can’t catch this much. When the pace in the front is what it is you can get a tenth here or there but not half a second per lap. I was ready for a battle and some action today, but unfortunately it wasn’t given to me. It is what it is now and hopefully Budapest works better.”

“In the first part of the race the conditions were quite tricky, the visibility in some places was very poor and I had very low grip on the Wet tires, but I tried to go as fast as I could and I went wide a few times. Once we got the Medium tires the situation improved a little bit, but it was not easy. Since the beginning of the weekend we had realized that this would have been a difficult weekend. Today we tried to do our maximum but we had not enough speed to fight against the guys in front. In these kind of conditions we need more downforce and more grip, I’m sure in Hungary it will be much easier for us. Next races it will be a different story, I don’t expect us to have similar issues, obviously you never know, but I expect that we go back to normal.”

“It’s a very good result for the team, with two cars in the points, even if I feel I could have kept fifth place without that spin at turn one. When I had that moment I thought my race was over, but I managed to save it. However, I flat-spotted my tyres and that hurt me for the rest of the race in terms of degradation. I pushed hard to try and keep Raikkonen behind, and it was only when he passed me that I was able to take it easy and save the tyres. We had to do a very long stint on the mediums, which was a bit of a risk as degradation was quite high, but the team made the right calls at the right time and it paid off in the end. The conditions, especially in the first part of the race, were very tricky. You had a drying line, but as soon as you put a wheel on the damp parts, all the grip was gone. Just keeping the car facing in the right direction was an achievement. To come away with this many points after a weekend in which I hadn’t been very comfortable with the car is a big satisfaction and it makes up for the disappointment of last week.”

“Obviously a good result for the team, but I still feel a bit frustrated with how the race unfolded because things didn’t work in my favour today. I really lost out under the virtual safety car, which allowed a lot of cars to jump me when I had already made the switch to intermediates. Then, I was stuck behind Felipe [Massa] for so many laps, even though I was a lot quicker than him. There was only a narrow dry line with a lot of standing water offline so it wasn’t easy to make a move. When everybody moved to dry tyres it was a lot of fun out there and you had to be very careful through turn one, which remained damp for so long. I did a very long stint on the medium tyres and by the final few laps it was just a case of trying to manage the degradation and survive until the end. Although I’m not totally happy, I am pleased with the car performance and the fact that we scored good points today.”

“I’m pleased with my race today, it was a decent one. We had a very good first half of the race in the wet and mixed conditions – we were fast, the car felt amazing and at one point I was racing in P6. Unfortunately I made a mistake going into Turn 1 – I’m not very happy about that! From that moment onwards I had to calm myself down and reset my confidence a bit. I kept my head down and to cross the line in P8 is a result we can be happy with, even though it’s a shame that we were not able to beat the Force Indias. Having said that, this is the fifth time we score points in the last six races, so we are definitely going in the right direction and we just need to keep pushing. The next race in Hungary should suit our car well so I’m looking forward to another good fight for points!”

“Today it was a tough day, but we trust our team and trust our car, so there is no reason to panic and to turn the world upside down. The call to come into the pits was absolutely right, but then the spin didn’t help, and all my advantage was gone again. The penalty in the end didn’t make a difference, it was not on purpose that I was trying to squeeze Felipe. Actually I was going out myself, and I was surprised how little grip there was, going side by side with him. In the end it was a racing incident. Now we need to understand where we lost something. We have a lot of things to learn from a weekend like this. Clearly today we weren’t as competitive as in other races, but at least we recovered some points. And this was the only race of the year where we weren’t able to beat the Red Bulls in terms of race pace. Things may look different in two weeks’ time, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. We need to go forward and understand why we made a step back this time around.”

“I think today’s race wasn’t a bad one – we managed to fight our way back nicely through the field, keep up with Ferrari and end up in the points, which was our target. We looked very ompetitive and actually I’d say that we deserved more points today. This is a good sign after a very long unlucky period! Personally, I am happy – I finally had a good day at a racing track and it’s a long time since I felt this. I’m sure that we will now learn from these positive moments and carry them with us all the way through to the end of the season. I look forward to the next race in Hungary!”

That was a disappointing race. We were trying to fight with so many cars throughout the whole race, but in the wet it was so tricky with oversteer. We tried to keep pace and positon, but our tyres were degrading a lot compared to other teams, causing us to drop position and finish outside of the points. When the tyres were working the pace was OK, even with the medium tyre. But once that dropped it was tricky.

“It was definitely the right decision to start the race behind the Safety Car – it was super-wet and there was loads of standing water, but I think it should have been recalled two laps earlier. “Then, when the Safety Car pitted, everyone boxed for Inters, so I decided to do the opposite, which was a good thing as I overtook a couple of cars. For the second stop, it was better to stop sooner rather than later, but I was stuck behind Valterri [Bottas], so I stayed out for another lap. “My race wasn’t helped by starting 17th: to get into the points, we need to qualify inside the top 10, hold on in the race, not make mistakes and hope to stay there. I couldn’t really close on the cars in front of me because we don’t yet have quite enough pace in the car to make up sufficient places in the race. “It wasn’t an easy afternoon, but it was great to see all the fans cheering at the end. They got a British victory as well, so I’m sure they’re very happy.”

“There’s not much to be proud about after finishing 12th and 13th today. “In the tricky conditions at the start, you can go from hero to zero in the space of one lap, so we just did what we could with the strategy. We lost some positions during the stops, unfortunately, so we need to go away and look at that. “There was a point in the race where I felt I could have scored a few points – when I was pushing hard behind Felipe [Massa] – but it was just too difficult to overtake. Then I went off at Turn One. “It was a tough race, but, even though it may not look like it, I think we’ve made a step forward this weekend; we’re more competitive. We could fight with Williams, Force India and Toro Rosso in the race, and that’s good news.”

Today was a disappointing day. I spun in the wet and lost positon. The main problem going from the wet tyre to the dry tyre was not getting enough heat into them to make them work. In the slick stints the pace was poor. As a team, it’s important we analyse what happened today. For myself as a driver I need to learn from my mistakes too. I’ll be having a day in the simulator tomorrow running through the test programme for this week.

“It was a good race for me, bearing in mind that I started from the back of the field. Overall, we extracted the maximum out of the car as well as the strategy. I got a good understanding of the track conditions, so we pitted at the right time. Initially I had a decent pace on the medium tyres, but after the track completely dried out the lap times were determined by our car’s performance. We are still not there where we want to be. We will keep fighting for points.”

“It was a very difficult race for us today. I lost quite a bit of time at the beginning with the first pit stop, and then there was a late call on the second stop. The pace we had just wasn’t enough to get further up the grid, but we’ll keep pushing as we look ahead to the next event. We’ve got a lot of data to analyze and I’m confident the team will do their best to get prepared as we all focus on the next race.”

“In the first part of the race the track was very slippery and the balance was difficult as it was wet in places. You have to push from the beginning though and try to stay on track. We tried our best but unfortunately we were just not quick enough today. We suspected something might be wrong with the gearbox towards the end of the race so retired the car as a precaution. It’s just not been our day, but we’ll look through everything and come back stronger in Hungary.”

“Today wasn’t the result I wanted for my home race. It was going reasonably well on the wet tyres at the beginning of the race and then we did a good stop for the intermediate tyres. Things were looking up: I got ahead of Kevin and I was catching Romain Grosjean. When I pitted for slick tyres, I had a green light to go but the rear right wasn’t finished and I’d already started to leave the box. From then on I lost about a minute and then received a 10 seconds penalty for unsafe release. What happened was unfortunate but it could happen to anyone up and down the pitlane. We retired the car as there was a strange feeling with the gearbox, more as a precaution as at that stage we were two laps down. We’ll now investigate the problem thoroughly. I’m looking forward to the test this week and focussing on the next race weekend.”

“First of all, I want to say a massive thanks to my car crew for rebuilding my car after the crash yesterday. They did an amazing job. It was great to be back in the car today, which was important after such an accident. I felt comfortable in the car. It was obviously disappointing that my race did not last long. We had an electrical issue, so I had to retire early in the race. Now we need to look forward to the next race weekend in Budapest.”

Pascal, bitterly disappointing day after the joy of Austria. “Yes, there was nothing I could do really. We’d just switched to the Intermediate tyre, completed a lap and then I aquaplaned into Turn 1 and lost control. I was just a passenger really.” It had stopped raining by then, but those damp to drying conditions are very tricky. If you want to maximise the race, you have to switch to Intermediates as soon as that window opens, yes? “Some parts of the track were okay and it was drying quite quickly, but in that situation there will always be parts that are still a little too wet and can catch you out. Unfortunately, that’s what happened. I know it happened for a few other drivers, but it’s very disappointing to end the weekend this way.”

Rio, a similar story to Pascal today, just a little later in the race. “At the start the track was really wet, but once the rain had stopped it started to dry a little more with each new lap. In the space of just 17 laps we’d gone from full wet tyres to slicks. But it was the right call at the right time, I just hit a bit of track that was still damp and there was nothing I could do.” What can you take from a weekend that ends so disappointingly? “Although it’s the race result that counts at the end of the day, the journey through practice and qualifying is important. We’d had a good weekend and in particular a really positive Saturday, so we have to focus on what went right and how we can use that to keep pushing forward for the next race. Today’s result is something we can’t do anything about now.”

“Well, the weekend didn’t end positively as we had a technical issue in the race, forcing our retirement. We were very slow on intermediate tires. That’s something we need to work on and understand. On a positive note, the car felt good on the high-speed corners, and qualifying was very tight. We almost made it to Q3, so that was great. We’ve had a lot of learning opportunities again this weekend. We have to take that as a positive. I’m very much looking forward to going to Hungary now. Our biggest challenge will be to get our tires to work, but when they do, the car feels very good.”