Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

The pace of the car was very good today, we were planning to do a different strategy to everyone else but unfortunately we couldn’t show that with the red flag. Nevertheless, we were very strong on the hard tyres at the end. To win 16 races in a season is something I never thought would be possible, this season has been unbelievable. I understand from Checo’s side why he went for it at the beginning, it would have been incredible for him to be on the podium at his home race here in Mexico. Thankfully the crowd stayed, and they’ve been amazing all weekend, I’ve felt so welcome here as I always do. For now, my head is already on to the next race, let’s see what we can do in Brazil.

It’s a great result considering we started from P6 and amazing day for the team. We pushed hard and I’m proud of the whole team for all their work. It’s been a difficult couple of weeks for us so it’s great to finally bounce back. The car felt much better today, and the pace was strong. Today was about the balance of the car and managing the tyres and we managed to do that well. We dug really deep this weekend to improve the set-up and get it right and the result today shows the hard work everyone in the team has put in to achieve that. Now I can’t wait to get to Brazil and hopefully continue with the strong pace of the car.

It was a tricky one. I was caught between the two Red Bulls at the start and unfortunately Checo (Perez) and I touched, which led to me picking up some damage on the car and to Checo retiring.
Later on, we struggled a bit on the Hards after the restart. Lewis (Hamilton) was really strong on the Mediums and had very little degradation, getting ahead of us.
It’s not where we wanted to finish, but we maximised our result.

It was a long and tough race today, having to manage tyres and temperatures constantly. Looking at the pace today I think the result is the maximum we could have achieved.
Both the starts were quite chaotic, but we kept it together and stuck with our preferred strategy of doing one stop, which we had opted for before the red flag. In the end we scored some good points for the team and now we focus on the upcoming Sao Paulo race with the Sprint format.

A very good race. Our pace was excellent from start to finish. The different strategy worked perfectly. A great day for us, probably one of our best Sundays in terms of race pace, overtaking and race management. We moved on from yesterday and made the most of it. I’m very happy with the team and how I drove today.

I felt really good in the car today, the pace was there so definitely a positive from this weekend. I was right behind Carlos wanting to overtake when my brakes overheated. We were concerned about making it to the end, so I had to back off and that’s where I lost all the temperature in the tyres and didn’t manage to get them back into the right window. It was like driving on ice for the last 20 laps so I’m glad I managed to finish in P6. Another difficult weekend for us but the car was performing well. We just need to have some clean weekends and show consistency, but I'm confident we'll achieve that. I’m looking forward to Brazil and I hope that we will show some good pace there too and hopefully we will be in a position to fight for the podium.

There’s a lot of emotions, and I’m definitely feeling better than good. Two starts on this track hold your breath because it’s such a long run until Turn 1, and anything can happen. The first start, we went into Turn 1 fourth and came out of it fourth as well, so I was happy. For the second start, I knew the Red Flag would hurt our race, but I’m happy to hear that Kevin (Magnussen) wasn’t injured after the big crash he had. Restarting on the hard compound, with others opting for the medium tyre, and only losing one position, was close to the best scenario, and we did well. We tried to settle into our rhythm, where I had a little fight with Norris but then let him go. We thought if he could catch George (Russell), he'd bring him closer to us, and he did. On the last lap, we got close but didn’t quite make it. Regardless, to be fighting with a Mercedes at the end is exciting. Overall, it was a good weekend during which we gained six important points. Now let’s keep the ball rolling.

A tough Sunday. I had a fair few battles out there, which made life interesting but definitely not the most straightforward of days. The pace was reasonable and then, after the Red Flag, life was a lot more tough. After the battling, I definitely struggled a bit more with the tyres and picked up some damage, which didn’t help. Good to bring home some more important points, but a few bits to look at for Brazil.

It was a great race, which surprised me, as we didn’t have that much race pace. The track was a little bit too hot for us so required a lot of tyre management, which I expected. We had very good starts where we gained some good positions and also had a good strategy, but the red flag ruined that a little bit, so we had to reset before the restart. We made up the places lost during the Safety Car, and I think regardless of Qualifying yesterday, P9 was the best result we could’ve done today, so I’m happy.

A tricky weekend has ended on a positive note with a hard-fought top ten finish here in Mexico. On the post-race radio, I said ‘never give up’ and today was about that. Well done to the team on a well-managed race where there was a lot happening from start to finish. We did not have a great start to begin, losing a few places and I found myself running last for a while. It was a tough first half of the race and we took a risk on strategy and it paid off. The race restart was mega, where I gained a few places in the first couple of corners. From then on, we raced well and maximised our potential today with a tenth-place finish and a well-deserved point.

It was a tough afternoon for us today and it’s always disappointing to miss out on scoring points. I think we maximised everything that we had in our hands but, unfortunately, the timing of the Safety Car and Red Flag really cost us as we were well in the fight for at least ninth place after a good start and a decent first stint. I’m glad Kevin [Magnussen] is OK as that looked like a heavy impact for that incident. There are things we need to improve as, clearly, we were lacking in a few areas today. I’m looking forward to rounding off the triple header in Brazil next weekend. It’s a Sprint, so more points up for grabs, and it’s a place where I hold fond memories from my podium in 2019. I’m ready for it and targeting a much better performance.

Congratulations to the team and Daniel on the points. The car pace was as good as we expected, so it’s such a shame about the incident with Piastri. I’m happy with my stint on the hard compound, without which I wouldn’t have been P8. It was strong, and it showed the car was good. It’s hard to follow others, so later on, I felt the tyres were starting to struggle, and I wanted to overtake as soon as possible. Huge apologies for the incident that led me to fall to the back of the pack. This track suited our car well, and because of the slow-speed corners in Brazil, I hope we have the same potential and chances. I hope we can fight for the top 10 at the remaining races.

The tires just dropped away, doing 37 laps was always going to be a long stretch, and on the medium tire it wasn’t possible for us. Unfortunately, we’d already used the hard compound as we were on a one-stop strategy and we didn’t know the red flag was coming. The timing of the red flag was not ideal, and it hurt my race – but more importantly, Kevin is okay. I was hanging in there and annoying other people, I’m sure they got frustrated seeing my rear wing for so long, so that gave me some pleasure.

It was a frustrating day – our race was pretty much destroyed by the red flag. I was one of the first to stop and change to hard tyres, but at the restart I was the one whose used hard tyres had the most laps in: everyone else had either new mediums or new hards, and that was game over for us. I had a good restart, but it was impossible to hold the position: the difference in grip was too much and I was a sitting duck for the rest of the race. It’s a shame as we had done a good job this weekend, and to leave with nothing is really disappointing.

Today has been a tough one of the team overall, and luck wasn’t on our side either: the Safety Car came out just one lap after we pitted, which meant we lost a lot of ground as everyone else got to change tyres during the subsequent red flag. The race restart was fine, at first, but then I got stuck in a train for pretty much the remaining laps, eventually ending up in a collision with Lance [Stroll] towards the end. Of course, it is disappointing to walk away with no points in the bag, especially as we had enjoyed quite a strong weekend until today. It has not been our day, but we still have three races to recover our position in the championship, starting from Brazil next week: we have been quite strong there in the past, so hopefully we can turn our luck around and get back into the fight.

It was another strong Sunday from my side. The pace was once again good, and I had some good moves. I had a poor second restart which cost me from being in the top 10. However, we were managing an issue throughout the race and came up one lap short from a reliability standpoint. We had a fuel pump issue that meant we had to retire. We had the correct amount of fuel in the car but couldn’t get the fuel into the engine. We did our best to manage it and the team helped guide me through it. Disappointing to not finish after giving everything I had after 71 laps but there are plenty of positives to takeaway and I’m happy with myself.

We had a slightly better car after making some set-up changes overnight, but we still don’t have the pace that we need to compete at the front of the grid. I had to retire due to contact with [Valtteri] Bottas between Turns 13 and 14. Our focus now shifts to Brazil and trying to maximise the final Sprint weekend of the year. I know everyone trackside and at the Campus is pushing hard to keep improving, and that’s all we can do right now.

It was a difficult race and weekend for us. It seems we picked up some damage from debris on Lap 1 after the Turn One incidents and we seemed to lose performance. We tried to fix this during the red flag, but it got worse after the restart and so we had to eventually retire the car. It’s not been an easy triple header so far, but you learn more from the difficulties than you do during the successes. We have three more races left of this season at very different tracks, so we will go again in Brazil.

I crashed after having a rear left suspension failure. It happened in a bad place and I hit the wall, so I got a knock on my hands and they hurt a little bit, but they’re fine. We have to investigate a bit more what exactly happened as it just gave up. Before that, it was going okay, I was stuck in traffic for a long time and cooked my tires, but I don’t know if whatever caused the failure had an impact for a while beforehand.

I had a tremendous start, probably my best of the year, the gap was there and if you don’t go for it what’s the point in being here. I went for it and to be honest I wasn’t expecting Charles to brake as late as he did and simply, there was not room for three cars. I wanted this victory badly and I knew it was risky but if it had worked, I would have ended up in the lead. At your home grand prix, after being on the podium twice you want to give it your all and I went totally for it, I really wanted the win today and I massively tried to get that. I go home really sad because of the result but proud of myself and my Team that we left it all out there, this is just racing, and this is how the sport goes sometimes.