Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

It has been an incredible weekend right from the start. The team deserves this win for the enormous work they have done both here and in Maranello and I’m proud to dedicate it to all of them and the tifosi.
We executed the weekend perfectly on my side and I think we managed the final thrilling part to perfection, giving Lando (Norris) DRS and controlling the pace all race long. Of course, pitting earlier meant we had to make our tyres last for a longer stint and the final laps were on the limit, but I’m extremely happy we made it work.
Tonight we celebrate, but from tomorrow we’ll start preparing Suzuka. Let’s keep it up.

Incredible. Carlos, Charles, Lewis, George, and I really pushed each other hard all evening. The end of the race was very stressful, but it paid off. We knew it was going to be tough as soon as Mercedes boxed, especially with only a couple of cars for them to overtake – but we held them off, did what we needed to do and we’re on the podium with P2, so I’m super happy this evening.
The team is amazing, and I can’t thank them enough for their hard work in giving me this car. It was good to see Oscar fighting his way through to P7, cementing the points for the team also. The car looked great in the Stealth Mode livery and it’s just a great result for the team tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do in Japan.

We rolled the dice this weekend and went with an offset tyre strategy. I felt like the race was a two-stop today and the team did an amazing job to get us back up there. Having to give back the two positions from the first corner was a shame, but I kept my head down and kept pushing. Overall this weekend, I haven’t felt fully comfortable with the car. Today it was in a better place though. If I had had that same feeling yesterday, I think I could have been fighting for the front-row. That may have changed my race today, but I’m still pleased to get on the podium.

It was extremely unfortunate what happened to George. We were pushing so hard to catch the guys ahead and our tyres were so hot. He’s been phenomenal all weekend and I know he will bounce back. We’re now looking forward to Japan so let’s see what we can do there.

I’m really happy for the team. So much work has been done in order to understand the car better in the past few weeks and today it paid off. Congratulations to Carlos who did a really good job all weekend. 
Our plan was for me to start on Softs and position myself ahead of George (Russell), which was the right choice and worked out well. Unfortunately, we lost some positions due to traffic during the pit stop under the Safety Car. Still, our race execution was good today so I’m happy. It’s great to see that we’ve made a step forward in terms of performance overall and hopefully we can confirm it next week in Japan.

I think we did the best we could today. We had good pace and we were just unfortunate with the timing of the safety car, if it weren’t for that, I really think that we would have been in a good place to fight up front. With the strategy today it was really important to not make any mistakes. In the end I was able to have some fun catching up on the mediums. For now, the target is to win next weekend in Japan. Everything needs to be perfect to win every race in a season, I knew this day would come and it’s absolutely fine. Everyone sees how dominant we can be and they don’t realise how difficult it really is, we need to get a lot of things right.

I am very happy to finish sixth today in such a physically tough race like that. I felt confident going into the race and I just targeted having a clean one, tried to be aggressive and decisive and we did just that. There were some tough battles but we got the best from it and maximised our result. A return to the points is important for the team and the car felt good with solid pace. It’s a pity for Esteban as it could have been sixth and seventh for the team, so it’s important we look into what happened and come back stronger across the board. On my side, I hope to enter Qualifying in a much better position to put ourselves in a much better place come Sunday. I’m looking forward to Japan next week on a track I love to drive.

P7. Not a bad night’s work! Obviously, our pace was decent, and I feel that I took advantage of the stuff going on around me after a good first lap. All-in-all, pretty happy with that. I don’t think there was too much left on the table there. It’s great to see Lando on the podium and for the team to be rewarded for all their hard work. I’m looking forward to the upgrades next week and hopefully we can have some more fun.

It was not a great day for us, it was as tough as we expected it to be, we struggled all race and nothing really worked. The safety cars came at the wrong time and it was similar with the VSCs, it was just not our day. In the end we were on a different strategy to everyone else and that was the best we could do. I think we have plenty of things to investigate after this weekend and a lot to understand as a Team. I think the issues were circuit related and we should be stronger next weekend, let’s move on and look forward to Japan.

I would’ve liked a few more Grands Prix to prepare for this one, but obviously, when you get the opportunity, you have to take it with both hands. Honestly, that’s what I’m trying to do, and today was fantastic. I’m happy with the race, and I definitely gave it everything because I think we maximised the car’s performance. I need to look at the start because it’s been two weekends in a row that I lost positions, so it makes our lives harder. We stayed out of trouble for the rest of the race and kept it clean. It’s hard when you’re struggling for pace, trying to maximise your tools and get everything out of it, so the race was physically demanding. At the end of the day, I’m really happy to have scored two points.

I thought it was completely game over once I got passed by Pierre [Gasly] and the McLaren. I had a brake problem, and I went wide at Turn 2, went off the track and came back so I thought it was game over then. When the Safety Car came, I pitted and had really good pace on the soft tire and came up, and then got lucky when Russell hit the wall and gave me the point. It’s very satisfying for me personally, it’s the third grand prix this year for me in P10 – I’m earning those points each time. I’ve really had a season where I’ve had to battle and work hard on things. We pulled this one out of the hat, but we don’t expect the same opportunity on the upcoming tracks until we get the upgrade.

It should have been P8 today; we were running in a good position and had a great strategy. We did expect a safety car to come in around that period and we saved the new Medium set of tyres for that situation, which paid dividends in the race. We had a really good evening; we were coming up through the pack and were in P9 and getting close to Liam [Lawson]. We most likely needed a couple more laps to get past him but then I had contact with Checo [Pérez] after he went for, in my opinion, a very optimistic manoeuvre and that was me out of the points.

We knew we had to try an aggressive strategy to make up ground, so we decided, as a team, to stop on lap two and put hard tyres, hoping to benefit from a Safety Car later in the race. The gamble almost worked, the SC did come, but unfortunately too early: its timing was perfect for those starting on mediums and it shuffled us to the back. At the final VSC, we committed not to stop for softs again, throwing the dice hoping for some other neutralization, but nothing happened and, in the end, we lost places to those on fresh tyres. We knew scoring points would be difficult, especially with two Red Bulls chasing from the back, but our pace was encouraging. We were in the fight for the top ten and I think we were in with a chance, had the circumstances been a bit different. We can be happy with some of the progress we have shown, I felt we were more competitive today. This track was always going to be hard for us, but I think we can make more steps forward in the next few races.

It was a long race once again here, lots invested, a lot of work but no pay-out unfortunately at the end. At the first Safety Car, I was the trailing car in the double-stop and we lost a lot of positions and ground there, which was not ideal. It was just unfortunate, not much we could’ve done about that. We managed the one-stop but at the end, I was just a falling fruit. I think we might’ve missed an opportunity pitting during the VSC, I feel there could’ve been points there as I was way ahead of Kevin, and he managed P10. A bit disappointed but we drove a good race, nothing personally we can be unhappy about today.

One mistake was very costly today. I feel like the car was in a good place. I’m proud of those last two stints. I never gave up and did everything in my power to close back in and make something happen, but I could’ve used one more Safety Car. It wasn’t a bad race in terms of pace and throughout the whole weekend. I need to cut out those small mistakes as it’s such small margins. I felt good on that first stint. I could feel the tyres starting to go away and knew we were getting close to boxing, so it’s a shame I made that mistake one or two laps too early and that could’ve changed our race. We can still take the positives as we’ve been decent this weekend considering the package we had. We’ll look forward to Suzuka.

It was an extremely tough evening: everything that could go wrong did go wrong for us. It’s better that it happened all in one hit – and let’s not forget it’s actually our first non-scoring race of the entire season. We came here with pretty high hopes, but Singapore is quite a unique event – race pace is really dictated by the temperature of the tyres – and maybe we went a little bit too hard. There are lot of things we need to investigate from this weekend – there’s plenty to take away and improve. We need to get better. Let’s just forget about this weekend and focus on the next one in Suzuka.

I am lost for words. I think we were half a car’s length away from winning the race today. If I was able to pass Lando (Norris), I am sure I would have been able to overtake Carlos (Sainz). Unfortunately I missed that opportunity. I made a mistake by one or two centimetres on that last lap, and I clipped the wall. It’s a mistake that has overshadowed my whole weekend. Up to that point, it had been a fantastic race weekend. The car felt great, and the team had done an incredible job. Our strategy was superb, and we were bold and aggressive. It was exciting out there and it’s heart-breaking to be standing here with zero points. Nevertheless, there are positives to take away. I will likely have a bad night tonight and even tomorrow morning. But I will put this behind me and come back stronger next weekend in Japan.

I am gutted to end the race this way. We were performing well and showed some good pace today. The team were making all the right calls and we were able to have some fun on track with some overtakes throughout the race. Unfortunately, we had a gearbox issue, which ended my race. We need to investigate closely to understand what happened and to ensure it does not happen again. We deserved more today but we can be proud of our performance all weekend. It’s certainly not the way I wanted to end my birthday but we have a chance to bounce back next week at my favourite track of the season and we’ll continue to work together as a team to make sure we come away with a strong result in Suzuka.

We knew we had to take some gambles today, taking into consideration our starting position and the pace we expected to have. The timing of the Safety Car didn’t really work for us – it was too early – and we couldn’t stop to switch to mediums at that stage, hoping to get them to the end of the race. We weren’t making much progress and, eventually, our race came to an end with a technical issue: we had to stop the car as a precaution, and we’ll need to understand what happened. Today really wasn’t our day, but at least we learned a lot about our upgrades: we expect them to help us more in Suzuka, so we will need to optimise our package and turn all the data we have into performance. I am looking forward to Suzuka: it’s my favourite track and I can’t wait to be on track there.

Firstly, congratulations to Liam for scoring points, especially as his first time in F1 in Singapore, he did well. For me, I’m very frustrated because it seems we haven’t had a clean weekend in the last two races, especially after the team brought massive developments to Singapore. I had a good start but made contact on the first lap, and our side pod got damaged along with the radiator and cooling system, so we had to retire. It’s frustrating and a shame I wasn’t able to reach the chequered flag. I feel very sorry for the team because I didn’t get the opportunity to extract the performance, and there’s definitely the pace to score points, but I reset myself, and we bounce back strong for Suzuka.