Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

I’m super happy to win the Monaco Grand Prix. It’s such a tricky track and you need a smooth weekend so I’m very pleased with what we have achieved as a Team and of course with Honda. I just had to focus on my own race and make sure I had a clean start. Of course it all looked under control but to keep your focus for so many laps is the hardest part because it’s easy to relax when you’re in the lead and make a mistake, so you have to keep reminding yourself to leave your thoughts on the road and stay focused. I think pace wise, we were always in control because every time someone tried to push me in terms of lap time, we were able to respond and increase the gap. I’ve never been on the podium here and then the first time it’s a win, so it’s a bit of redemption for the other races I’ve had here. Looking ahead to Baku, Mercedes I think are still the ones to beat, they are very quick on the normal tracks. We are leading the championship and I hope of course to be there at the end of the season because that’s the most important thing so we cannot get carried away. But for now, a massive thank you to everyone in the factory and here at the track, we won the Monaco Grand Prix so let’s enjoy it.

The first podium in a Ferrari is an incredible feeling that I will never forget, especially being in Monaco! We knew we had a chance and the pace to make it to the podium this weekend and we executed a flawless race.
The bittersweet feeling is still there though as I feel for Charles and for the team. All of us here at the track and back home in Maranello are working incredibly hard to be competitive and to make our way back to the top. So it was very unfortunate that today we could not fight with two cars.
From my side, I am obviously happy with P2 because I think it was the maximum we could achieve today from where we started. We are still missing the final step that we all want to make, but if we keep pushing like this I’m sure we will get there sooner rather than later! Forza Ferrari!

Awesome. Monaco podium! It's pretty incredible, I never thought it could happen coming into this weekend at all, so I’m super, super happy. I’m proud of the team for what we’ve achieved this weekend. We’ve made some good progress. We’ve still got more work to do – it’s not like we can let-up now – but another trophy and a lot of points for us, which is pretty awesome. A big thanks to the whole team and everyone back at the factory as well for all the work they’re putting into it. It’s paying off, and I hope this is motivation to work even harder and keep bringing improvements.

Today is a great day for the Team and I’m very happy for Max, he did a mega job and now we are leading both championships. The Team did a fantastic job on strategy and the communication throughout the race was excellent. We saved the tyres and used them when we needed to which was key and we did two or three qualifying laps to jump the queue of cars to get fourth. I was closing on Lando but he had good tyres left and I never really had a clear chance at him. I was thinking of the long game and getting the points which is important for the Team. The cars are just so wide these days but it is what it is. We managed to minimise the damage from Saturday and I think once I’m more comfortable with the car in qualifying, we’ll be in serious contention and fighting for victories as I’m happy and pretty much there on Sundays.

I am happy with fifth place today and it is great for the team to have both cars inside the points. This result is down to great decision-making on the pit wall and having good pace in the car when it mattered. I knew that the two laps before my pit stop would be crucial to our race, and I was able to put in some good lap times on tyres that were past their best, and that made the difference [gaining two places by the overcut]. It was very tight when I came out of the pit lane because I knew [Pierre] Gasly was very close. It is not easy racing wheel-to-wheel up the hill to Casino Square, but we won the drag race, and he had to back out of it. Street circuits can always throw up the unexpected, and we rose to the challenge today.

It was a pretty long race and obviously with Lewis behind it wasn’t easy, I couldn’t make any mistakes and just had to focus on my own race ahead, but I really enjoyed it. Finishing P6 today is good, I think we can be happy with that result and it’s the best performance of the season so far. The car felt really good in the first stint but once we put the Hards on we really struggled, and it made it pretty difficult on a couple of occasions with Lewis but I’m happy we managed to keep him behind. I believe we took the right strategy today, we had to cover ourselves with Lewis’ pitstop, but it didn’t quite work out. It was very tight between Seb and I going up the hill, I was quite surprised to see him and there was maybe just a finger between our tyres, but it was great racing. The car performed well today, even if I think we could have achieved more and there are definitely some areas we still need to improve in compared to some of the cars we’re fighting against. I’m still pleased with this result though, it was important for us to be back up near the front and getting some big points again was great for the team.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch an Max und sein Team, sie haben heute bessere Arbeit abgeliefert. Unser Team wird durch Niederlagen und Fehler immer stärker. Mit Blick auf die Performance war dies alles in allem ein schwaches Wochenende, aber dieses Team hat schon oft bewiesen, dass wir daraus gestärkt hervorgehen können. Es wird nicht mit dem Finger gezeigt, wir gewinnen und wir verlieren gemeinsam. Jetzt müssen wir nur wieder Fuß fassen und ruhig bleiben. Es stehen noch 18 Rennen aus, uns erwartet also noch ein langer Weg im WM-Kampf.
Wir werden hart weiterarbeiten, um sicherzustellen, dass dies nicht mehr passiert. Angesichts der ganzen Erfahrung, die wir gemeinsam als Team gesammelt haben, gibt es keinen Grund, warum es für uns an jedem Wochenende so laufen sollte. Wir werden intern einige gute Gespräche führen. Diese Lektionen sind schmerzhaft, aber wir haben das schon öfter durchgemacht.

Both cars scoring points in Monaco is a good day for the team. We executed a great strategy and picked up some deserved points for our hard work. It was not easy to race on the hard tyre in the first stint, especially at the start, but I was able to launch well off the line. That gave us a platform for the rest of the race, which came to life late in the stint as we pushed to make the overcut viable or be ready in case the Safety Car came out. We gained three places through the overcut in the end and had strong pace to the end, too. We are still learning every race and we can be proud of the job we did today. We will work hard to keep up this momentum in Baku.

It’s been a positive race for us today with ninth place and our fourth points-scoring finish in a row. We managed to overtake Giovinazzi on our strategy – thanks to a great pit-stop from the team – but we missed out on Stroll who was very quick on the harder tyres. I’m happy to score points again, especially after defending so much at the end. I think we can take some good things from this race on a weekend that was not easy for us. We’ve learnt a lot, we’ve been taught a few things, which will only help us moving forward. I’m sure there’s more to come from us.

It’s really good to finally be back in the points. The pace throughout the weekend was really good and this top-ten finish is the reward for it. On a different track, where overtaking is possible, we could have been in P8, but we need to be happy with this result and the way the team delivered an excellent weekend. We have done a lot of progress and this point will work as a good motivation for all of us, with so many races still ahead of us. I’m looking forward to Baku now, another street race on a track I love. If we produce another great weekend like this, we will have all it takes to bring home another good result.

It wasn’t the busiest afternoon for me today, we moved up a few places but not much else happened. That’s how it often goes here. We showed some good pace and this should help us in the next races, but here in Monaco passing is so hard even if you have a big pace advantage. It is what it is but we can be happy for the team scoring its first point of the season.

This has just been a bit of a weekend to forget for me, unfortunately. The race was always going to be tricky after a difficult qualifying session yesterday and that’s how it turned out. I struggled a bit at the start on the Medium and that pretty much decided our race.

“The second stint on the Hard was encouraging and the lap-times really started to improve, but by that point there wasn’t much more I could do given how hard it is to pass here. I’ll just have to figure out what happened and just step away for a few days to switch off a little bit before going again in Baku.

On the positive side, it was a great result for Lando and the team, so congratulations to everyone. It shows the pace is there in the car and that we’ve just got to work at unlocking it, but that will come with time and mileage.

It was a disappointing weekend as we didn’t score points. As a team, we were expecting more coming into this one. My race wasn’t too bad, starting seventeenth and finishing thirteenth, overtaking two cars on the first lap with some risks. Our second stint was quite long on the Softs, but they seemed to work quite well. I am satisfied with the race but starting so far back in Monaco is always difficult and we need to improve for Baku.

It was a pretty straightforward race and we finished where we deserved to be with the pace of the car. The race was uneventful, with nothing too exciting going on, but that’s just Monaco sometimes. The performance wasn’t as good as we had hoped but that wouldn’t have changed the result. Nevertheless, putting this car flat out around the streets of Monaco, lap after lap was really fun. Next up is Baku and we will keep on pushing.

It was a very tricky race, probably the trickiest race I have done so far in Formula One, but I think I managed it quite well. It is definitely a track that doesn’t suit our car, either on low or high fuel, with the low speed corners and the bumps. It was very tough out there to manage, but I feel like I looked after the tyres as best I could. I did have some more pace than George at various points in the race, but ultimately, we wouldn’t have been in the position to score points. There was no Monaco chaos, but that’s just how it goes sometimes here.

Starting from P16 we knew it wouldn’t be easy. I struggled for grip in the first lap compared to other cars around me and we lost a few positions, after that I was constantly behind cars, despite having strong pace, so wasn’t able to make my way forward. The main thing for me is my Qualifying performance and how I can improve this. I’m going to work hard ahead of the next race so that we can hopefully be in a point scoring position next time out.

The race was very intense. Ever since I started racing in single-seaters I haven’t had so much required concentration, because on this track, even though we’re one of the slowest teams, everything flies by so much. There was a moment when I was going through turn 14, I just felt like I touched the wall, and that’s where Charles (Leclerc) went off yesterday, I mean there was just really no margin for mistakes. The car was quite difficult to drive fast out there but we’ve made good progress within my internal team since Barcelona and that’s a very positive picture.

We had a small issue for a few laps and unfortunately I lost a lot of time to the guys ahead and I had to let Nikita (Mazepin) by because we didn’t manage to fix it before. After that the pace was quite good, I felt we were quite close to matching the pace in the midfield which was good, and we caught up to Nikita. We didn’t do a switchback which was ok, it was understandable – obviously, we had quite a few guys behind us so there was going to be blue flags. Overall, lots learned this weekend, with some positives and some negatives but we live and we learn I guess. I’m already looking forward to Baku.

It was a tough one today. I really felt for the whole team.
After what happened in qualifying, the mechanics did an incredible job and gave absolutely everything to get me back on track for the race. I was really looking forward to finally be fighting for the win for us here. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be.
Not starting the race was difficult to take, especially at home. I was emotional in the car when I realised that there was something wrong. We still have to investigate what exactly was the issue.
Overall, it was a good weekend for us though. Carlos was strong and consistent and I am happy for him and the whole team for scoring his first podium for Scuderia Ferrari. After a difficult year in 2020, this was a great reward for everyone, both at the track and back home in Maranello, and the team fully deserves it.

Als ich beim Boxenstopp im Auto saß und wartete, wusste ich, dass es ein langer Stopp war und ich rechnete mir aus, dass Sainz und danach Norris vorbei waren. Als es dann 30 Sekunden waren, konnte ich es einfach nicht glauben. Das ist natürlich eine riesige Enttäuschung und wir müssen daraus lernen, damit es nie wieder vorkommt. Das war sowohl Pech für mich als auch für das Team. Für uns wird es Priorität haben, unsere Boxenstopps zukünftig zu verbessern. Unsere Stopps waren in diesem Jahr nicht gerade unsere Stärke, dafür gibt es keinen Schuldigen, wir müssen uns einfach als Team steigern.
Zwischen Runde 15 und 20 hatte ich einen guten Abstand auf Max, aber als er seine Pace anzog, merkte ich, dass mein linker Vorderreifen nachließ und ich Boden auf Max verlor. Bei meinem Stopp hatte ich einen größeren Rückstand auf ihn und es wäre vielleicht schwierig geworden, um den Sieg zu kämpfen, selbst, wenn wir hart gefightet hätten. Aber Platz zwei wäre heute möglich gewesen.
Wir werden das Rennen am Dienstag detailliert besprechen, um zu verstehen, was ich persönlich und was wir gemeinsam hätten besser machen können. Danach geht es mit den Vorbereitungen auf Baku weiter.