Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

Today was quite eventful and not a straightforward race at all, we had to make the right calls and it all worked out well in the end. Mercedes were very quick on the harder compound which we didn’t expect, so it made it more difficult for us as we were less compatible with the hards. We managed everything quite well and we made the right calls on the strategy so well done to the Team here and back at the factory. It’s always special to win your home grand prix but this year I had to work even harder for it. It’s incredible to win again in front of this crowd, we’ve had unbelievable support here and I’m proud to be Dutch.

Es war ein unglaublicher Empfang hier, ein ganz besonderes Gefühl für uns Fahrer, in Zandvoort und in den Niederlanden zu fahren. Als Team haben wir heute eine unglaubliche Pace gezeigt. Ich weiß, dass das Teamergebnis nicht ganz das war, was wir uns erhofft hatten, aber das gibt uns viel Selbstvertrauen und eine Menge Zuversicht für die Zukunft. Es ist unglaublich, drei verschiedene Teams auf dem Podium zu sehen, und wir als Mercedes kommen dem obersten Treppchen langsam näher, also lasst uns weiter Gas geben. Es war keine leichte Entscheidung für das Team, als das letzte Safety Car kam. Wenn man vorne liegt und die Position hält, hat man die Chance, um den Sieg zu kämpfen, und das haben wir getan. Aber das ist es, wofür wir als Mercedes hier sind, wir sind hier, um zu gewinnen. Und die 2.000 Leute in Großbritannien, in Brackley und Brixworth, arbeiten alle daran, uns diesen Sieg zu bescheren, also haben wir heute eine Entscheidung getroffen, um uns die beste Chance darauf zu geben. Unsere Performance im Qualifying gestern hat uns an diesem Wochenende wahrscheinlich am meisten gekostet, denn wenn wir in der zweiten Reihe gestanden hätten, hätten wir wohl noch mehr um den Sieg kämpfen können. Aber unsere Entwicklung vom ersten Rennen in Bahrain, bei dem wir eine Sekunde zurücklagen, bis zu diesem Wochenende, an dem wir das schnellste Rennauto hatten, ist unglaublich beeindruckend und jeder im Team sollte sehr stolz sein.

We’re not particularly happy with P3 today after having started second, but we were just not fast enough. The first stint was really good on the Soft compound. I was quite confident, but on the Mediums things became more tricky, especially with Mercedes being so strong on the Hards.
We were unlucky with the Virtual Safety Car, but I don’t think it would have changed much for us. Our competitors seem to have improved their pace, especially in the race, and this is something we will be focusing on going forward.
We’re off to Monza next. Although, on paper, it doesn’t look like it will be the strongest race for us, we’re always extremely motivated going there. It’s our home race and I can’t wait to see our tifosi again.

Heute wurden wir durch die VSC- und Safety-Car-Phasen wirklich gefordert. Ich denke, die Strategie und das Auto waren bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt sehr gut. Die Boxenstopps waren fantastisch, die besten, die wir das ganze Jahr über hatten, und das hat mich wirklich aufgemuntert. Vor allem nach einem so wechselhaften Jahr, in dem wir seit Saudi-Arabien im letzten Jahr nicht mehr gewonnen haben. Plötzlich lag ein Sieg endlich zum Greifen nahe, aber das Safety Car hat natürlich nicht gerade dabei geholfen. Aber die Jungs waren wirklich voll bei der Sache, wir waren alle bei der Sache, und ich hatte wirklich die Hoffnung, dass wir als Team einen Doppelsieg einfahren würden. Aber so wie es sich nach dem letzten Safety Car und dem Platzverlust abgespielt hat, war ich mit meinen Gefühlen kurz vor dem Zusammenbruch, und ich entschuldige mich beim Team, denn ich weiß nicht einmal mehr, was ich über Funk gesagt habe. Ich bin für einen Moment ausgerastet. Aber ich denke, sie wissen, dass wir mit so viel Leidenschaft dabei sind, und ich möchte den heutigen Tag als ein halbvolles Glas betrachten - wir hatten beim letzten Rennen wirklich zu kämpfen, aber heute sind wir gegen die Red Bull gefahren, wir waren an vielen Stellen schneller als die meisten anderen. Ohne das Safety Car hätten wir ihnen am Ende auf der Ein-Stopp-Strategie den Sieg streitig machen können, was die anderen wohl nicht geschafft hätten. Aus diesem Wochenende kann man so viel Positives mitnehmen - das Auto funktionierte endlich. Wenn das auch in den kommenden Rennen so sein wird, werden wir ihnen weiterhin im Nacken sitzen und diesen Sieg holen.

Obviously this is a great day for the Team but it wasn’t the best day at the office for me. I struggled with tyre degradation in the first and second stints and I never quite got the balance where I wanted it to be. It was a hectic race with incidents in the pit lane but I was lucky that my front wing wasn’t damaged when I drove over the wheel gun. Despite the difficulty I had, we managed to save some good points. There’s lots to take away from today and plenty to understand from our side so that we can come back strong in Monza

It was a good race for us today finishing sixth and scoring more points in the standings. We lost a few places obviously at the start, but we made some ground back and stopped very early for the Hard tyre. The pace of the car was good, and we continued to make progress. The only moment of the race where I felt we could relax a little bit was when we fitted the Softs and everything seemed set for us, but then the Safety Car came out and changed everything. We had to fight hard until the last lap with those behind us on fresher tyres and it was like a Qualifying session until the chequered flag. It’s a good result again for the team and my tenth points finish in a row, so let’s keep this up next weekend in Italy!

Tough race, but I think it was a good one. We gave it our all. I think we had decent pace. It’s just tough battling with both Alpines, they can play a lot more with the strategy and hold me up. That was tough, so I’m happy with how we did. P6 would have been the best we could have achieved anyway, so one position out. We did lose some points to Alpine but they’re getting more out of their car than us at the moment. Despite that, I’m happy with everything else. We’ll keep pushing and try to be ahead again next time.

Today we had a very tough race and things just didn’t go our way. The set-up we went for didn’t work as expected and after picking up some damage at the start with Hamilton we lacked a bit of pace overall.
Obviously, the late call for the first pit stop cost us a lot of race time and afterwards I got the penalty for an unsafe release, even though there was nothing else I could have done in that situation as I was trying to avoid hitting a McLaren mechanic in front of me. A tough one, but we’ll now focus on the next race at home in Monza.

I’m pleased to score points today and it was a nice recovery after disappointment in Qualifying on Saturday. We have also outscored McLaren again, which is positive in our fight in the Constructors’ Championship. On my side, I had a mega start, made up a few places in the early part of the race, which put us in position to score points. There’s always more you can do, so we’ll assess the things we can improve for next time to come away with even more. Another race is just around the corner and I’m already looking forward to Monza, a track that I love, and one that will likely suit our car better. We will push on!

Overall, it has been a positive weekend in terms of performance, but we were a little bit unlucky today with how things played out and how that affected our strategy. The timing of the Safety Car gave the Alpines and [Lando] Norris the advantage: without that we could have been fighting for seventh. Our pace was strong all weekend, I felt really confident in the car, and we were more competitive. That is really encouraging for the coming races. It has been a great push by the team back at the factory to make our car quicker, so hopefully this is the start of a strong run through to the end of the season.

Finishing P11 is never a great feeling, we tried our best to make it into the points, but I don’t think we quite had the pace to make it possible today. Ultimately, we’re lacking a little bit of performance compared to the other cars around us, we lost some time in the first stint and struggled on the Mediums in traffic. I think there are still some positives to take away from this weekend though, we knew this was going to be a track we would struggle on but the pace on the Hards this afternoon looked competitive. We’re now heading to Monza for the last of the European races, where I hope we’ll be able to come back stronger.

I think coming into today, we didn't have high expectations, so think we've proven we're not too far away from the points. We didn't expect much from the high downforce circuit, so it's positive and I think going forward we won't be so scared of these types of circuits and can focus on fighting for points. I was happy with the car, despite just lacking a bit of lap time. There's still a little bit to find, but we can work on this and look at what we can do, as right now we're fine tuning the package and know its limitations. It's not points but it's a good job.

We didn’t have the greatest of pit stops – I think we had a problem with the front jack not coming down, so I think that brought us out of contention for points this weekend. Nonetheless, it was great being here and I had a lot of fun even though I was at the wrong end of the field, battling with Sebastian is always great. These things happen, we’re now looking ahead at scoring points in the new few races to come.

We did not have great race pace – but probably could have earned a better result if we had not started so far back. We stopped early to try and undercut the cars ahead. That strategy would have worked, but that first pitstop was really slow – I lost a lot of time to Zhou [Guanyu], Pierre [Gasly], Alex [Albon], Mick [Schumacher] and I was very close to Daniel [Ricciardo]. I enjoyed my battle with Mick – but this race was not a highlight for either of us. Then I got a five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags when I was being passed by Lewis [Hamilton], but it did not really make much difference to my race. A tough day where making progress was always going to be difficult – but it is what it is.

When you hit the wall in the race it’s not good, but it was my mistake. I tried too hard, lost the rear, went off and hit the wall, came back and I was able to continue. I tried my best to come back but I spent a long time trying to just get back up to the field but managed to make up a few positions and finish P15. It was a bit of a wasted weekend, so I hope we do better next time.

It’s been quite a tough race today, particularly towards the end as we got slowed down a lot by all the blue flags. The late safety car also did not play in our favour, as there wasn’t much time left and we put on used softs which didn’t make it easy to charge up. It’s been a challenging weekend overall for the team, we’ve been clearly lacking something compared to the rest of the midfield, so we will have to work hard in these few days: we need to make sure to improve ahead of Monza next week and for the rest of the season, to try and get back to where we were, performance-wise, during the first races of the year.

It was always going to be a tricky Sunday because of where we started and the nature of the track. The first few laps were not too bad. I think we made some places here and there but starting that far back its hard to make a big impression, you need a big difference to make some moves and overtakes. In clear air, it felt like I had a little bit of pace to use – but it didn't always seem to last long. So, obviously another challenging weekend. We look ahead to Monza, and I’ll try to bring back last year’s magic.

It was just a race to forget really. We’ve been struggling with pace the whole weekend and it’s quite confusing to me as to why. Due to the issue in qualifying we didn’t really get the chance to see where we would have been on pace, so one to learn from.

It’s always disappointing to end a race ahead of time. I felt the car’s pace was better than yesterday’s, we had kept progressing, even though it would have still been challenging to score points. The battle in the midfield was quite good and there was plenty of action, but then we had a technical issue and our race was over. I am waiting for confirmation, but I think it was a power unit issue: there was no sign prior to that, everything was feeling ok and I suddenly lost power. I could see some flames in the back, so now we’ll have to see what we find there.

It’s been a disappointing day, as heading into the race our pace looked quite good and we were hoping to finish in the points. We dropped back a few places at the start of the race but were slowly making our way forward again and were positive we could finish in the top 10. Unfortunately, after I stopped for the Hards, I felt there was an issue with the car, the team could not see anything at that stage so they called me in to change the tyres. However, when I went back out I could still feel there was something wrong, which the team then confirmed by radio and we had to retire the car.