Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

It’s great to finish the race today alongside Checo with a first and second place, it was a difficult beginning but a good end! I went off in turn four, I completely lost the rear and they said on Team radio that it was a big gust of wind. I lost a few positions through that and as soon as I wanted to attack, my DRS stopped working. It was upsetting at the time but then I calmed myself down and focussed on the bigger picture. It was a tough battle with George Russell, especially without the DRS, I didn’t want to take too much of a risk as we were fighting for the lead, I had to be patient. As for the DRS, I’m not sure why there’s an issue, we’ll look into it and at the end of the day nothing was lost. We are on a good trajectory and we can be proud of that as a Team, but as you can see, some things are fragile and we need to keep on working hard, we have to be on top of everything.

It’s a great result, we are leading the Constructors Championship so, although I obviously want to win, I have to be realistic and I am happy with the Team result. My frustration on the radio was in the heat of the moment but I need to speak with the Team to understand a few bits from the race. Sometimes when you are driving you can’t get the full picture, so it is a normal thing to debrief things to understand the race. The Team momentum couldn’t be any better here, it is a great Team and we are very united. It wasn’t about Team orders today, what really changed my race was going onto different tyre strategies and that worked better for Max and, at the end of the day, the Team because we managed to both get past George. I could have won today but making the two-stop work was difficult and it turned out that the three-stop was the better strategy. I think we had a very strong race today, the race pace and management from us was great today and it was important not to make mistakes. Hopefully we continue this momentum on to Monaco and are strong next weekend too.

Heute war es super hart! Ich bin einfach sehr stolz, hier auf dem Podium zu stehen und das Ergebnis für das Team nach Hause gebracht zu haben. Die Jungs haben sehr hart gearbeitet. Dieses Resultat ist ein Dankeschön für alle in Brackley und Brixworth, die unermüdlich gearbeitet haben. Ich habe alles gegeben, um Max in Schach zu halten, das waren einige unterhaltsame Runden! Mit den beiden Red Bull in meinen Rückspiegeln habe ich versucht, alles aus dem Auto herauszuholen, um sie hinter mir zu halten. Es waren sehr schwierige letzte Runden, ein echtes Überlebensrennen, als wir wussten, dass wir den Abstand verwalten mussten. Vielen Dank an alle Fans hier in Barcelona - sie waren das ganze Wochenende über unglaublich! Die Unterstützung für die Formel 1 ist im Moment großartig, deshalb ist es toll, hier zu sein.

It was a very tough Sunday and very far from what we were hoping for. A gust of wind threw me off in turn 4 and unfortunately, my car was damaged. From then on, it was a big struggle for me, as a lack of downforce meant I was sliding around with the tyres pretty much everywhere. We gave absolutely everything to recover and managed to get back to P4, which is not too bad given the circumstances, but it’s far from ideal.
A pity for Charles, as he retired when he was leading, but we will work as a team to come back stronger in Monaco. The biggest positive from today was the amazing crowd in the grandstands supporting us, so I want to really thank every fan out there for their support. On to the next one.

Ich bin einfach nur dankbar, dass ich mich so wieder nach vorne kämpfen konnte, und ich bin dem Team dankbar, dass es sich nicht unterkriegen ließ und so tolle Arbeit geleistet hat, um diese Verbesserungen zu ermöglichen. Das Auto hat sich im Rennen großartig angefühlt, unsere Pace ist näher an den Top-Jungs dran, was fantastisch ist. Ich hatte einfach Pech, dass ich am Start einen Reifenschaden hatte, aber ich habe nicht aufgegeben - so machen wir das doch, oder? Es ist heute viel heißer als vorhergesagt, und für alle ist es mit diesen Autos ziemlich hart. Ich musste am Ende praktisch mit Halbgas fahren, um das Auto zu kühlen, und auf der Geraden viel lupfen, um frische Luft in den Motor zu bekommen und ihn dadurch abzukühlen. Ich war sehr enttäuscht, dass ich den Platz an Sainz verloren habe, vor allem, wenn man bedenkt, von wo ich gekommen bin. Ich lag mehr als 30 Sekunden hinter dem letzten Platz - das ist wie Niemandsland. Es ist ein schreckliches Gefühl, so weit hinten zu liegen, aber man muss einfach den Kopf oben behalten, weiter pushen, weiterfahren und auf Besserung hoffen. Wir haben immer noch Probleme mit dem Bouncing, aber nicht auf der Geraden, sondern in den Kurven, aber nicht annähernd so schlimm wie vorher. Die Jungs arbeiten wirklich hart, und ich bin sicher, dass wir das mit der Zeit beheben können. Wenn ich das Problem am Anfang nicht gehabt hätte, wer weiß, wo wir dann am Ende gelandet wären. Es ist gut zu wissen, dass wir eine ähnliche Pace wie einige der Spitzenleute haben.

We got some good points today and we take plenty of positives home. Our pace throughout the race was really strong and it was nice to be in battles with the big teams ahead – it shows how much progress we are doing and how the upgrades we brought here seem to work well. In the end, we chose to be aggressive and take a risk with the strategy, going for a two-stopper when everyone else went for three: it didn’t pay off, as the tyre life of the medium compound was a bit shorter than we anticipated and we struggled at the end, but we still brought home a good result. I’m really looking forward to Monaco now, our car should be pretty good there.

I’m very happy for the team today with a good double result. It’s probably the best result we could have hoped for after yesterday and the team should be very proud for what we achieved today. It was a great first stint with some good overtakes and, overall, I don’t think there is anything we could have done better. It was awesome to see Fernando in the points as well after starting from the back, and to do it here in Barcelona is even better. After a difficult Saturday we proved that the pace is there, and the car is working well so this result definitely feels good. I’ll sleep well tonight!

Today was tough. I was feeling really unwell before the race as I'm suffering with tonsillitis, and that, in combination with the high temperatures, made this one of the hardest races I've ever done. I've been a bit on the backfoot this weekend as most of my energy has been spent fighting off this illness. I've had to miss a lot of engineering sessions, which has compromised my weekend, and I definitely wasn't as prepared for the Grand Prix as I could have been. With that in mind, I'm really pleased to have come out of the race with decent points for the team.
The team have been working really hard to bring performance to the car, so I'm glad we could take something from the weekend. We'll look at the data over the next few days, see if there's any additional performance we can extract from the car and make sure we're ready to go for Monaco.

It’s great to finish in the points today especially after our bad qualifying yesterday, so I’m very happy with that. The atmosphere was special today and even though we were starting last I feel like we managed to put a show on for the fans. It feels a bit like a victory! Hopefully we can start scoring consecutively in the points from here. I think we still need to improve on Sundays, but we did a good job today and managed it well. In reflection on Miami and Thursday, maybe I see it in a different way now. The Stewards did their job in Miami and perhaps we see things differently from inside the car in the heat of the moment. I am fully supportive of the FIA’s ideas and we want to work with them to improve the show for the fans.

That was a super tough race, it was so hot in the car today and then we were in a constant battle to make it into the points, so the pressure was there. I’m quite happy with my performance today and where we finished in the race, we haven’t been comfortable in the car the whole weekend, so to be fighting for points was a good step forward. However, I think we’ve still got a lot of work to do to be able to be higher up the midfield.

Today was all about managing the tyres and the grip – it was very slippery out there. Everyone’s tyres were falling to pieces and lots of drivers pitted fairly early, so we tried something different by opting for a two-stopper. In the end, I do not think it really made too much of a difference. Ultimately, we just lacked a bit too much pace to really be able to attack the points-scoring positions. But we tried something – P11 is not much of a reward, but we had a decent race. We knew this new package was not going to be a massive step straight away, but we believe it is a better direction for the future. We are making progress and going forwards, and that is what really matters.

It wasn't a good race today. I'd love to find something positive, but it was just a struggle from the start. I was slow, and I simply had a lot less grip than everyone else around me. With the three stops, we had four chances on different sets of tyres, but we didn't have the pace on any of them. I'm not really sure why, to be honest, so we'll try to have a look and understand it. Hopefully, we can get on top of it as the upgrades we brought were good. We've got a short turnaround for Monaco and then we'll go again and hope for a better one in a week.

I’m extremely disappointed with today, it’s very frustrating. I had a small touch early on that damaged the car and from then on, I had no pace, we were losing downforce and sliding everywhere. I take responsibility for the accident with Stroll, I was pushing it to the limit, so I want to apologise to Lance for that. We tried everything we could from then on, but at the end of the day there wasn’t much we could do.

It’s quite unfortunate. Obviously, we knew it was going to be tight with the two-stop and it didn’t quite pay off to stay out so it’s something to learn, something to understand and move on from here. It was a great Saturday, and we had a very clean Friday too which is very beneficial. We had a good start, a good first lap and that’s all you want from today. Maybe the pace just wasn’t there today but hopefully it will next week, so we’ll keep pushing.

It was a difficult race, though it was largely ended by the contact with Pierre [Gasly] when I overtook him going through Turn One. We had to pit and check over the car, so that cost us up to 30 seconds. The positive is that the car did feel better than it did in qualifying, which is important considering we are running a new package. We need to go away and review the whole weekend, look at what we have learned, and then apply it for Monaco. I am very excited for the next race - it is such a special Grand Prix and I cannot wait to get started.

We struggled on track today with overall pace, but it was also tough on tyre degradation and physically due to the extreme heat.
That being said, I’m happy with the way that we managed the tyres and it’s nice to have an aggressive strategy that allowed us to push and race a bit more. I enjoyed chasing down Kevin at the end, especially as the Haas is a car that’s much faster than us on paper, and although we weren’t fighting for points, it’s still something to be pleased with.

I was on the outside and got hit in Turn 4, had a puncture straight away and that was basically the end of the race. I think we were on a tough strategy because of the first lap incident but when the tires were sort of new, the car was good. On to the next one.

It was a tough day out there. I picked up damage to the floor after my first stop which heavily impacted the car’s performance. There was a lot of tyre degradation and I really struggled with speed, especially into a couple of the corners.
It’s unfortunate as it meant we didn’t really stand a chance today, but that’s racing sometimes and we’ll go again next week in Monaco.

So far this year, the team has been doing an incredible job in terms of reliability. Of course this one hurts, because we were in front all weekend and worked really well. I know that things like this can happen sometimes and in moments like these, it is important to look at the positives. Our pace was very strong in qualifying and in the race and the feeling in the car was really good. We made progress in terms of tyre management, which is something that has been a weakness in the past few races. So it’s a shame and I’m disappointed that we lost the opportunity to score a lot of points, but the season is still long and we know we have the potential.
Next up is my home race in Monaco, so I’m really looking forward to it and I hope that it will be a good one!

It’s disappointing to finish the race ahead of time for the second weekend in a row, especially when we were potentially on the way to a good result. We need to further investigate the issue in detail, both to understand exactly what went on and to prevent it from happening again, since it’s hurting us a lot. Until the retirement, I was having a good race, fighting with the midfield guys ahead of me trying to get into the top ten. Let’s hope for a better outcome in Monaco, it will be a very interesting weekend.