Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

The first lap I had to be careful but we had a good start and were clean through the first chicane and for me that was the most important thing, to stay out of trouble. Then we were very quickly back up to P3 and even into P2, then I could set my sights on Charles and I could see we had better tyre degradation. Overall if you look at the pace of our car this weekend, especially today, I think we were strong. The pace was good on every tyre and we were comfortably the quickest on the track. You have to try and be as perfect as you can be and on most occasions this season, we have been pretty good.

Monza is always incredible. Starting from pole, I did want to take the win. However, that’s not how it went today. Seeing our tifosi under the podium made it a lot better.
Our pace was good and we have to keep in mind that our expectations for this track were not very high. We worked a lot throughout the practice sessions to secure pole, which was a nice surprise. We have made some positive progress and were more competitive this weekend, so I am looking forward to be back racing in Singapore.

Leider waren wir an diesem Wochenende nicht da, wo wir als Team sein wollten. Aber wie ich schon am Funk gesagt habe, spielt es keine Rolle, ob wir schnell oder langsam sind, wir fahren immer wieder auf das Podium. Bei diesem Triple-Header waren zwei der drei Wochenenden sehr schwierig, und ich habe trotzdem zwei Podiumsplätze und einen vierten Platz geholt, also müssen wir damit zufrieden sein. Mit Blick auf das heutige Rennen mussten wir etwas anderes tun, wenn wir mit Max und Charles kämpfen wollten. Deshalb haben wir beim Stopp die harten Reifen gewählt, aber sie waren einfach zu schnell. Das war alles, was wir in unserer Position tun konnten. Jetzt haben wir ein paar Wochen Zeit, um uns als Team neu zu formieren und uns auf den letzten Teil der Saison vorzubereiten, damit wir jede Chance nutzen können, die sich uns bietet.

A good race! I felt comfortable right from the start, overtaking cars nearly every lap and climbing to P4 very early on.
After pitting for the Soft tyre I was closing the gap to Russell quickly and I would have had a chance to battle with him for P3 at the end. Even when the Safety Car came out, I would have had a great opportunity at the restart with my new set of Softs, but unfortunately the race finished as it did and neither scenario happened.
I’m happy with the performance and the comeback, but looking at our pace I was hoping to be on the podium in front of all the tifosi. Thanks to everyone for such great support today. We will continue to push until the end of the year!

Heute Morgen sagte das Team, dass ein Ergebnis zwischen dem sechsten und vierten Platz möglich sei. Das fühlt sich immer weit hergeholt an, wenn man auf das Rennen blickt - aber es hat mir viel Spaß gemacht, mich bis auf P5 vorzuarbeiten. Der Anfang war schwierig, weil wir viel Benzin im Tank hatten und die Reifen im Verkehr überhitzten, aber dann machten wir im Laufe des Rennens Fortschritte - und es machte mir Spaß, mich nach den Stopps durch den Verkehr zu arbeiten. Am Ende blieben wir draußen, um die Position auf der Strecke zu halten, und es hätte ein harter Kampf werden können, wenn das Rennen neu gestartet worden wäre. Deshalb bin ich froh, dass das Rennen so beendet wurde! Insgesamt wussten wir, dass es ein hartes Wochenende mit der Motorstrafe werden würde. Aus diesem Grund bin ich froh, dass ich auf P5 ins Ziel gekommen bin und alles aus dem Auto herausgeholt habe. Das war nicht unsere beste Strecke, aber wir haben als Team alles getan, was wir konnten, und ich hoffe, dass wir bis zum Ende der Saison noch einige stärkere Wochenenden haben werden.

My race got compromised fairly early when my front right brake disk got super-hot and was basically on fire, so we had to make the decision to pitstop. The first laps on the hard I couldn’t get any temperature into the tyres because I had to lift and coast, I was losing a lot of lap time and my first stint was compromised. That affected my whole race and I had to massively manage my breaks, it was critical at that point because I could have lost them and had to retire the car. In the end we boxed thinking we could get Lewis back on the softs but unfortunately the safety car meant we didn’t get the chance. I had better tyres than Lewis so it would have been good to get the restart but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. For me it wasn’t a good weekend and we have plenty to do, I am back on the simulator tomorrow and trying to get back into a good rhythm straight away.

A good day. Very happy with the result in the end. Pace was very strong today. We should have finished P5 or P6 but we lost several positions with an issue at the start, which compromised our race. Tough, especially on a day when we could have scored some really good points. However, there’s a lot of positives coming out of this weekend. Some strong things to try to carry on to next time. So, we’ll keep working hard and try to maintain this momentum for the next few races.

Looking at the result, finishing behind the top three teams is the best we could have done, and I am very happy to be collecting points again. It was a slightly frustrating race, I think I’ll have nightmares about Ricciardo’s rear wing for the next few nights, we tried a few different things to try and pass him and our overall performance was competitive, but we just didn’t have the pace to get past the Mclarens today. We’ll now prepare for Singapore, we know what we need to work on, how to improve, and we’ll aim to continue finishing in the points.

I'm feeling really good about today and think it was crucial to get the start right and a clean run into lap one. I got into a DRS train which helped to stick with the pack, however I think the pace was really good and we made a good call on strategy and tyre management. Driver of the day makes me so happy and I'm very pleased and thankful that I got given the opportunity and I grabbed it with both hands. It was a great day for the team and whilst grid penalties played in our favour, ultimately, we did a great race so I'm very happy for everyone in the team and for myself. Hopefully I will get a shot next year, but this is definitely a dream come true and I'm very impressed with what we've done in short notice, so I'll go enjoy it now.

I am really happy with today’s result and with the work that has been done in the past few weeks; it’s been a tough journey since Montreal, because we were very strong at the beginning of the season and then our performances had a dip; but being back in the points today is an amazing feeling, a great result both for the team and for Alfa Romeo. We knew we had a chance today, our pace was good and it allowed us to be in the fight with the other teams. We have a couple of weeks off now, which will give us time to rest after the triple-header and, above all, to analyze what worked this weekend and what went wrong in the previous races, to come prepared and motivated ahead of the next ones. I am looking forward to the Asian double-header, as the races will be closer to home and there will be several fans coming to support me.

It was a tricky race today and obviously it’s disappointing to finish just one position away from the points in the end. The car was performing well, and we had good race pace, which we weren’t able to show with traffic ahead. We’ll refocus and maximise everything for the remaining races from Singapore and onwards. I’m looking forward to a little break to recover from the triple header and fully prepare for the flyaway races where we’ll look to get both cars back into the points in our fight for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.

Considering I haven’t really driven much this weekend and had a difficult qualifying, to then actually be close to the points – I think mentally already being in the points – it was a strong recovery. The Williams was super quick on the straights, even pulling away in the DRS so I had to get the move done somehow, and it was a decent one. Overall, we’re really happy about the performance we’ve shown, and we really were on a good course as everybody else was struggling on their tires and we were on a very good tire.

We had good pace today, so it’s disappointing not to be in the points: in the end, my race was compromised at turn one when I was hit from behind and I hit the car ahead. I had damage to the front wing, having lost the endplate, and then the car went into antistall: before I could get back going, I had lost a lot of ground and I was last. The car was clearly good, as I was able to make a decent recovery, but the damage still made it quite tricky: at least, the team got a point with Zhou so we have something to show for today. I’m looking forward to the mini-break ahead of us now, before we go full push for the end of the season. We know we can score points and I really want to finish the year in a stronger place than we are now.

Starting last on the grid was always going to be difficult today, but I think the start of the race was good for me and I was able to make some overtakes. I struggled with the pace on the Hards, so we need to go away and look at our long-run pace and try and improve this for the upcoming races.

A very tough race. I was compromised at the start being sandwiched between a few cars and trying to avoid damage. A lot of cars cut the first corner without any penalties. Unfortunately, we had a slow pit-stop which left us with very little to play for in the race. The aim was to maintain the position we started in and we had a fighting chance, but it wasn't meant to be. We were fast in a straight line, but we struggled with braking and carrying speed through the corners. We'll look to bounce back in Singapore in a few weeks.

I had contact at the beginning of the race in Turn 1 – I got hit from behind and the diffuser got damaged – and then from there we were slow. The damage was too much, and I don’t know exactly the impact it would’ve had, but nonetheless it wasn’t a great day. You always hope that the next race is going to be better. Singapore looks more suitable for our car so I’m looking forward to it.

It was nice to start at the front and get a decent start. Lando looked like he had a poor start so I got ahead of him and it was nice to be in third there, but I saw quickly Max (Verstappen) was right behind me and he was obviously on another level. I was just trying to set a rhythm in fourth, but we weren’t quick enough. I felt like I was doing a good job to hold off Gasly but didn’t have much more to show than that. It was a busy race, trying to hold on, do what I could and then yeah, felt like we got a little bit of a rhythm on the Hards with 10-15 laps to go but then the engine just switched off out of Turn Six. I had to pull over straight away because it was stuck in gear and so I couldn’t roll to a safe place. It would have been nice to get some points but it wasn’t meant to be today.

It was a challenging race today and we seemed to be finding it difficult to keep up with the cars ahead of us on the straights. We then had to retire the car with a suspected water pressure issue, but we still need to investigate why this happened. We were fighting inside the top ten and I was hoping we could see the chequered flag inside the points, but it wasn’t the case today. It’s been a long three weeks; the team has worked very hard and deserves a short break. The good news is that we are still ahead in the fight with McLaren for fourth, so we go to Singapore with the aim to be in the top ten again.

We had some issues with the car, so we decided to retire to look after the engine. It is a shame that we were not able to be more in the mix this weekend, but that is sometimes how it is in F1. We have to look at why it was so tricky for us on this track, and see what we can learn from that. I think we will be more competitive in Singapore, which is a completely different circuit to here, in a couple of weekends.

Unfortunately, we had an issue with the ERS and we had to stop the car. I noticed a drop in power beforehand, and then I was told to pull off the circuit. Overall, this was just a tough weekend for us. I was hopeful for a decent race, but we struggled for pace and then had the problem that forced our retirement. The atmosphere was fantastic, however, so a huge thank you to the fans for their support this weekend.