Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

It was really hard for me to think straight after the race, I was full of adrenaline and so much energy going through the race. Once I heard my national anthem on the podium here it hit me, it is a dream come true for any driver in the world to tick that box in Monaco and I can just be extremely happy. We were quick all weekend, we kept our heads down and knew today with the right strategy we could make things happen. This win was for my mum and all my family, she was very sick last week so I had very good motivation going into this race to get her a victory. It’s been an incredible day, I am super happy for the whole Team and I hope my country are proud too. You don’t win Monaco many times in your life so the first one is very special.

It was a tough race but overall I cannot be too disappointed. We made the right call to go from wet tyres to slicks but unfortunately a lapped car in my out-lap cost me too much time and we missed the opportunity to take the lead. After my pit stop I rejoined right behind Perez and that was it. Overtaking here is extremely challenging and with some wet patches off the racing line it was even more difficult today. It is a tough one to digest, because the win was there for the taking, but I gave it my all out there and we’ll come back stronger as a team for the next double header.

First of all congratulations to Checo, he did an incredible job today. As a Team we did a really great job, we managed a good strategy. Of course finishing third for me is not ideal but I wasn’t able to improve my lap time yesterday so that’s just how it goes. In the heat of the battle and with the hectic start, we stayed calm as a Team, we made good decisions. The strategy paid off with Checo winning so that was the biggest positive of the day. I’m really proud of the Team effort this weekend and to get two cars onto the podium.

I’m disappointed to have lost this win and it’s a tough one to take, especially at home. It will be important to understand exactly what happened to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.
In the first pit stop, we went from extreme wets to Intermediates, and got undercut by Perez. Three laps later, I stopped again, behind Carlos, and lost two more positions. It’s just impossible to overtake in Monaco without taking huge risks, so I stayed put to bring home as many points as possible and I guess that fourth is the best we could do under these circumstances. Mistakes happen, unfortunately today we made too many.
I love my team and I am sure that we will come back stronger.

Das war ein harter Nachmittag, der aufgrund der holprigen Abstimmung des Autos körperlich sehr anstrengend war. Zudem war er durch die unterschiedlichen Bedingungen auch sehr lang. Im Nassen war es knifflig, so lange wie möglich auf den Regenreifen zu bleiben. Nach den Stopps hatte ich dann einen schönen Zweikampf mit Lando - und eine starke Pace auf den harten Reifen. In der zweiten Hälfte des Rennens war es auf dem Medium-Reifen schwierig, gegen Ende hatte ich viel Graining, aber P5 ist trotzdem ein ordentliches Ergebnis. Wir sind auf dieser Strecke mit unserem Auto an einige Grenzen gestoßen, aber wir haben viel gelernt und können das in den kommenden Wochen nutzen, um einen weiteren Schritt nach vorne zu machen. Alles in allem ist es ein gutes Ergebnis und ich bin zuversichtlich, dass wir noch stärkere Tage vor uns haben.

It was a good day for me. We lost out to the Mercedes in the first pit-stop, which was a close call, but you win some, you lose some, and in this case today we just lost out. I think the team did a really good job, I had a competitive car, and it was an enjoyable race; it’s impossible to describe what it’s like to drive an F1 car around Monaco in the rain – it's very tough. We have a lot of things to review now as a team to try to do better for next time, but we still got some decent points and it was nice to get the fastest lap towards the end as well, so I’m satisfied with the weekend. I look forward to the next race in Baku.

It was a very difficult race today with the conditions, so we can be pleased with a seventh-place finish and more points added to the championship. It was a tricky race to manage with difficult choices on strategy at times, but we did everything well as a team and it was all well managed. At the wheel, it was not easy, and I had to be careful at times not to make any mistake to make sure we brought the car home in the points. On the dry stints, because of what we learned on Friday, we had to be careful on the tyres, especially for me after the second-red flag. We held on to seventh comfortably, so I’m pretty pleased with today’s job.

Das war ein harter Nachmittag, der aufgrund der holprigen Abstimmung des Autos körperlich sehr anstrengend war. Zudem war er durch die unterschiedlichen Bedingungen auch sehr lang. Im Nassen war es knifflig, so lange wie möglich auf den Regenreifen zu bleiben. Nach den Stopps hatte ich dann einen schönen Zweikampf mit Lando - und eine starke Pace auf den harten Reifen. In der zweiten Hälfte des Rennens war es auf dem Medium-Reifen schwierig, gegen Ende hatte ich viel Graining, aber P5 ist trotzdem ein ordentliches Ergebnis. Wir sind auf dieser Strecke mit unserem Auto an einige Grenzen gestoßen, aber wir haben viel gelernt und können das in den kommenden Wochen nutzen, um einen weiteren Schritt nach vorne zu machen. Alles in allem ist es ein gutes Ergebnis und ich bin zuversichtlich, dass wir noch stärkere Tage vor uns haben.

It’s been a pretty long race, but we can be happy we made our opportunities count as a team. It was really easy to make mistakes out there and I am glad we didn’t: gaining positions in Monaco is never easy, so to end up in the points from P12 on the grid means it wasn’t a bad day. We made the right strategic calls, which was a challenge as it was not easy to choose which tyres to pick at any time. We took some calculated risks and they paid off.

Today was a race in which anything could happen, but actually it was quite a clean and straightforward race for me. We managed to pick up a point, which was a good effort because it is always difficult to make progress at Monaco, especially with only one dry line. Given the way the race developed, I do not think we could have finished any higher. It was a real struggle on the Wet tyres in the early laps so that is why we went to the Intermediate as soon as we could. We learned more about the car, too, optimising the set-up with the new parts we introduced recently. All these steps are taking us in a good direction for the races to come.

We started 17th and finished 11th, so considering Monaco and the track layout, I think we can be happy with this today. When I saw the rain on the grid I had a massive smile on my face, as I knew it was our opportunity to try something different and to hopefully move forward. We took some risks today, I called for Inters on lap one as we had nothing to lose. We managed to pass some cars, as the pace was there, and I must say from inside the cockpit this was really exciting. It was obviously tricky, sliding all over the place, but it was really fun, you were driving on the limit and that’s what Formula One is all about! We were fast in all the practice sessions, and even in the race today, so it’s a shame to be finishing just outside the points, as I think we deserved to be up there this weekend.

Today’s result is tough to swallow, and I’m frustrated that we leave Monaco without scoring points. Inside the car it felt like a racing incident with Lewis [Hamilton], especially at a track like Monaco where any overtake attempt is likely to involve some contact. The team has worked so hard all weekend, especially in finding the gains between Friday and Saturday, and we now leave without scoring deserved double points. We’ll have to move forward and I’m looking to put it right in Baku where we race next.

We knew today was going to be tough. Obviously being Monaco, results are heavily based on qualifying so yesterday really shaped the weekend. I think when we saw the rain come that was quite a surprise - just how quickly and heavy it came. We thought maybe there was some opportunity there, but obviously everyone kind of ended up filling into similar strategies. In any case, we ultimately just weren’t quick enough this weekend. So not much more to say. It was cool having a full crowd back. The atmosphere here was fun. I would have loved to have put a bit more of a show on, but that wraps up the weekend.

I knew it would be a struggle to score points when starting so far back and it was always going to be a tricky race in the wet weather, but there are positives to take. We made the right call by switching to the Intermediate tyres early on because it was clearly the best compound. Overtaking is difficult at Monaco, so getting past [Yuki] Tsunoda at Rascasse was a pleasing move and showed that the car is becoming more competitive - especially considering the slower-speed corners here. On the whole, the race gave us plenty of opportunities to continue learning about the car’s recent developments. I am confident we will be able to develop the car for both the slower and faster circuits in the near future.

Wet conditions are always tricky and even more so on a street track like Monaco! It was a very challenging race and after pitting early on, we were detached from the back of the pack but we did have good pace on the intermediate tyre to catch the field back up.
The last stint on the medium tyre proved quite tricky as I didn’t feel completely comfortable with the balance.
However, we managed to bring it home, which isn’t easy in these conditions, and also picked up two places from the guys we were racing around which is a positive.

It was a challenging Sunday, but I think we achieved the maximum we could get. Part of the race was just about surviving, defending hard in the wet – especially when we had to keep going on the wet tyres on a drying track to make our strategy work. It was a good experience to race here in these conditions, my only scare was when I had a snap fighting Tsunoda, but I saved it. The Monaco experience as a whole was tough, but I didn’t do any mistakes and I was matching the pace of the cars in the midfield, so I can be satisfied about that.

It’s been a frustrating day, I didn’t have a good start and was P16 before the red flag, I need to go away and look at what happened there. The pace of the car was ok in the race, we gambled a bit on the Medium tyre for the restart and unfortunately that strategy didn’t pay off today.

The conditions meant that getting the brakes in the right window was really challenging, especially with all the variation that a drying track brings and the red flags. The car felt good whenever we had clean air though and I did feel competitive at points, so there are some positives to take away from today.

We had a power unit issue of some sort, so we had to retire the car – there was nothing we could do about that sadly. I really thought our pace in the race was good considering we were on a full wet on a dry line, I had been able to keep Gasly behind until our issue and I was closing on Bottas. It would have been really exciting around the pit stops to see what could have happened. It’s unfortunate with no points today even though I think we had the car to do it, we knew we could fight.

I’m feeling alright, it’s very annoying. In terms of pace, we were definitely there and it’s just a matter of keeping it on track – unfortunately I wasn’t able to do that. The pace felt strong and it felt like we were able to attack and push. Unfortunately, I went a bit too wide, probably about 10 centimeters at the end, and that’s enough to lose all grip that you thought you had and the result is what happened.