Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

To have a weekend like this for both of us with a one-two for the Team is just incredible. It was a very lovely Sunday! Everything today was well executed, coming into the weekend I didn’t expect it to be like this. It was more or less a perfect weekend, everything went well for us and we’ll of course enjoy today. I scored the maximum amount of points this weekend and we can be really proud of that as a Team, it’s a great boost. Today was all about judging the conditions, making the right calls and staying very focused and I think we did that very well. We need to keep focused and we know that at the next race we need to be up there again and keep this going.

It was a tough race but an enjoyable one. Rule number one in these conditions is to finish. It was difficult because in these conditions it is easy to make a mistake and put a foot wrong but we managed a clean race and kept out of trouble, which was pretty important. I got a great start and the restart was good too, then I think the Team did a great job with strategy out there. On the intermediates I was really thinking to save the tyres but the degradation was high and Charles was really fast towards the end of that stint so I was happy to just keep him behind. The race was pretty intense with Charles, he was always within an undercut range and when we thought we had him under control he boxed and made things a lot harder for both of us. We were both pushing with cold tyres and, in fairness to Charles, it was easy to make mistakes. We have had such a difficult start to the season with reliability concerns and DNFs, so it was really important we brought it home today - it is a great result for the Team.

P3, what a result! We certainly didn’t expect that coming into this weekend, so I’m happy to be leaving with a podium. It’s been a tricky weekend, but the team recovered well to put me in a good position for today’s race. I had a good start and was managing my tyres to the end. At that point we were on for a P4, which would still have been a great result. We got a bit lucky with the issues ahead, but we did what we needed to do to be in a position to take that opportunity. Great work by the team at track and back at the factory, great pit-stops and a great result. On to Miami!

Ich bin relativ zufrieden, dass wir an diesem Wochenende das Maximum an Punkten herausgeholt haben. Ob wir das Beste aus dem Auto herausholen, ist eine andere Geschichte, und ich denke, dass sich die Dinge in diesen ersten vier Rennen etwas zu unseren Gunsten entwickelt haben. Ich bin mit diesem vierten Platz wirklich zufrieden, aber wenn wir diese Position in der Meisterschaft halten wollen, müssen wir mehr Pace finden. Unser Auto hat Probleme mit dem Bouncing und wir wissen, dass wir mit dem Aufwärmen der Reifen zu kämpfen haben. Und dies war das mit Abstand kälteste Rennwochenende, das wir in diesem Jahr hatten. Ich glaube, es ist seit Bahrain ein kleiner Trend zu erkennen, dass wir im Qualifying jedes Mal ein bisschen langsamer geworden sind, und ich glaube, das liegt daran, dass es in Bahrain am heißesten war, so dass wir keine Probleme mit dem Aufwärmen der Reifen hatten. Danach ging es nach Dschidda, und es war immer noch heiß, aber die Strecke war ein bisschen glatter. In Melbourne war es ein bisschen kühler. Hier war es sehr kalt. Und dann sieht man, wie McLaren, Alpine und Haas ihre Stärken ausspielen können, aber im Rennen dann etwas mehr zu kämpfen haben. Wir müssen einen besseren Kompromiss finden, denn wir hatten heute Glück, wir haben ein ordentliches Ergebnis erzielt, aber wir standen viel zu weit hinten in der Startaufstellung.

It was a fun race for me today! It’s always good to get points, we had a strong race in a car that felt really good. I am happy with how everything went, even though we lost a bit of time in the pit-stop, but we bring home ten points today so we’ll take it. I had a bit of a scare at the beginning of the race, when I couldn’t avoid Ricciardo when he tangled with Sainz, but luckily we didn’t have any damage. The car had good pace, especially once we went on the mediums, and only at the very end, when I caught George [Russell] I had some graining on my rear right that cost me performance. The team is working really well, there’s a good atmosphere and it’s nice to see the upgrades we brought to the track worked. There’s still a lot of work to do and many races ahead of us, so we can still improve and have some fun weekends.

It was a very tricky race. Third was the best result we could have secured today, as our competitors were very strong. I struggled on the Soft tyres but when I saw an opportunity to overtake Perez for second, I went for it, pushing a bit too much, when I should have stayed put to secure those points. We will analyse all the data and come back stronger.

I’m super happy with today, especially to score points at our home track. There are a lot of people from the factory watching here in the grandstands today, every lap I could see the AlphaTauri flags being waved and it gave me a great boost, so it feels like a big thank you to everyone that works so hard in the team. The pace of the car has been really good today, I didn’t expect it to be quite that strong heading into the race, but we’ve made progress through the week and I’m pleased with the performance we showed this afternoon.

The team did really well today and we maximised everything to finish P8. It is an important result for the team because they have worked so hard in a challenging season so far. It is clear that we benefitted from the cooler and damp conditions on Friday and Sunday, but we still needed to capitalise on the opportunities that came our way. We also achieved that through good strategy, making our pit-stop for dry tyres at the right moment. We may not have had the pure pace in this race, but we managed the tyres well and we got both cars into the points. It is nice to get off the mark and get points in the bag and now we are looking forward to Miami.

We scored points again – both yesterday and today – so that’s a good weekend. When we qualified P4, hopes were very high at the beginning, but we’ve got to be realistic as well and getting away with points in both the sprint and the main race, that’s a decent weekend. At the beginning of the race, I was on intermediates and got up to P5 and the pace was pretty good. Then the track dried up and we were a bit late to come in for slicks, so we got undercut by a couple of people. We came out and fought for points – got two today, three points over the weekend – so it was pretty decent.

It has been a positive weekend for the team and it is great to see both cars in the points. It was a well-earned point for us today because there was intense pressure throughout the race, not to mention the changeable weather conditions. At the beginning of the race, we performed strongly. Everyone was battling overheating tyres and a drying track, but we kept [Lewis] Hamilton behind and pressured [Yuki] Tsunoda ahead. Once we switched to the Medium tyre, we continued to show good pace and pulled away from the train of cars behind us. I am happy that we performed better this weekend and made the most of the opportunities that came our way. Qualifying and the race were in cooler and wet conditions, which may have suited us. We will enjoy today but will continue to keep pushing for more in the coming races.

I’m really happy with the result today. We maximised the opportunities and overtook some cars on track with the pace we had. We had a new rear wing configuration for the weekend which really helped us hold position, and was particularly important in the second half of the race when battling with Gasly. It’s a shame that we missed out on points by one place, but we are taking opportunities, doing things differently and showing that we can battle higher up despite not having the fastest car. I was hoping DRS would be enabled a little earlier; we had six or seven laps where we were faster than the cars ahead and, with our downforce levels, we could have got past straight away if we’d had DRS. By the time it was enabled I was wishing it hadn’t been! Overall, another weekend with plenty of positives for the team to take onwards to Miami.

It was a frustrating race, we were all stuck in a DRS train and with the top speed we had we weren’t able to do much. We’ve had really great performances in Quali up until this weekend, where sadly we didn’t perform well, which meant we were on the back foot from Friday. We need to go away and work out how to get back to a stronger Qualifying performance for the next race. I’m really excited for Miami, the track looks really good and I’m looking forward to race there.

Das war ein Wochenende zum Vergessen, so viel steht fest. Ich steckte hinter Gasly fest, weil wir beide DRS hatten, so dass es unmöglich war, ihn zu überholen. Zudem habe ich beim Boxenstopp ein paar Plätze verloren. An diesem Wochenende ist alles, was schief gehen konnte, auch schief gegangen. Aber es geht weiter und wir lernen daraus, mehr gibt es dazu nicht zu sagen. Ich werde weiter so hart arbeiten, wie ich nur kann, um zu versuchen, es irgendwie wieder hinzubekommen. Ich hoffe auf ein besseres Wochenende in Miami. Es wird schwierig, aber ich werde versuchen, mit einer positiven Einstellung an das nächste Rennwochenende heranzugehen.

It was a frustrating race for us in the end where we’ve not scored any points. For me, it’s been a tricky one since the beginning and the Qualifying result compromised the rest of my weekend so if you think about it, where we ended up today before the penalty is not too bad. We lacked a bit of race pace and in the end we were not quick enough to get into the points even without the five second penalty. It’s a really tight pit-lane but we’ll be looking at exactly what happened in the debrief tonight to see if it could’ve been avoided. We’ll learn and move on from this one, and I’m already looking forward to Miami.

Not the result I wanted today, but there are still a lot of positives from me to take out of this weekend: not just the performance I showed over the three days, but also how I got up to speed quickly in my first Sprint race. The weekend started better than expected and I had a good qualifying, but yesterday really compromised our final result. It was always going to be hard to make it into the top ten from the pit lane, especially as today it was quite difficult to pass, and once I got past the Williams, the gap to the cars ahead was too big. The rest of my race was quite uneventful, but I can still look at the things I learned in difficult conditions and make sure I get back stronger in the next races.

It was important for me to get that experience and continue to build my confidence in the car, as I still feel that it’s not quite where it needs to be yet.
I think we made some steps doing that though which is positive, and our pace at the end on the medium tyre was relatively strong.

Unfortunately, I lost our position right at the beginning and then had to recover from there. It was quite difficult, the Williams was very quick in the straights, so no chance for me there to get by. We were hoping we had more pace. It was quite unfortunate, but we live and we learn, we try to look ahead and do it better next time.

It was a great result for Lando! However, it was one of those Sundays for me unfortunately. At Turn 1, I thought I got hit but it was actually me getting on the kerb. I then slipped off it and went into Carlos [Sainz], before being bumped by Bottas. We had a bit of damage and struggled for the rest of the race. It’s a painful one and it’s never nice to be involved in incidents. There’s not much more to say. Just one of those Sundays. We’ll celebrate Lando’s podium and learn what we can as we head to Miami.

This was an unlucky day. I braked well into turn 1, leaving enough space to my left, but unfortunately Daniel (Ricciardo) lost control of his car a bit and hit me from behind, throwing me into a spin and into the gravel. It’s a big shame because we were up for a good race, but there is nothing else I could have done differently at that point to avoid it.
It’s tough to take, as today I wanted to have a good race in front of our fans. For the last two races things haven’t gone our way at all, but I’m still confident we can turn it around. There are many races ahead of us and you can be sure we will keep pushing. On to Miami.

It was another unfortunate race for us this season. We made a decent start and moved up to eighth but there was a lot of damage on the right side of my floor and on the sidepod, so we had no choice but to retire. It’s unlucky as a small brush with Mick [Schumacher], which wasn’t intentional, destroyed our car and race. After Australia I feel that I could have scored 20 or 30 points in the championship, and I have only two. It’s unlucky! It’s a long season and there are plenty of points still to score.