Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

What an incredible feeling. The first time I won in Monza in 2019 was so emotional to both me and to our whole team, I didn’t think that winning here could ever feel like that again, but today, it did. Seeing our tifosi celebrating with us is just amazing and I am so glad that we could share this victory for a second time. Monaco and Monza were the two races I have always wanted to win, because they are so special to me. A huge thank you to every single person in our team who made this happen today. You have done an incredible job to make this dream a reality and we can all be proud to have achieved this together. We had a perfectly executed strategy today and beat our competitors to it, and we will give everything to keep this momentum for the rest of the season, taking any opportunity we have.

I’m not going to lie, this result hurts. We did a lot of things right today, but Charles’ strategy looked to be the right choice. From the position we were in, with the tyres looking like they did, attempting a one-stop seemed too risky. I’m very happy with the pace, and happy with the race I managed to deliver – but when you finish second it’s painful.

A frustrating day on track. Ferrari drove a better race today, so hats-off to them, they had a better car. Well done to Oscar, he did a good job getting past me, and deserved to finish ahead. We considered the one-stop race, but it wasn’t possible with the amount of graining I had. We knew it would be tight, and we’re disappointed with the end result, but we’ll go again in Baku.

First of all, congratulations to Charles and the entire team, including the people working in Maranello! I'm really happy for all of them and the tifosi, it’s definitely a well deserved win! It was a shame I couldn't keep a podium position today. I think staying out and extending the first stint made me lose some race time and the train of tows at the front. From there it was difficult to make up time but the call to commit to a one-stop strategy was the right one and overall we should be happy that the car seems to work better. Let’s see in the upcoming races if we can keep up the good results.

We didn’t have the pace today to fight for more. The McLarens and the Ferrari in particularly were strong. I managed to keep up with Sainz but couldn’t do the longer stint and the one-stop that he was able to. If we had started ahead of him, we might have been able to hold him off. Ultimately though, we needed a better balance with the car today to achieve much more.

It’s a shame to come away from a weekend where we were looking so strong without more to show for it. We looked good throughout practice and qualifying but couldn’t quite match that today. The field is so tight now and it will be fascinating to see what happens over the coming races. We will keep working hard and hopefully have a stronger race in Baku in two weeks’ time.

It was a bit of a mixed Qualifying session, Q1 and Q2 actually felt pretty good and we set some more competitive lap times during those sessions. In Q3, we struggled with balance and I picked up a lot of understeer compared to the runs before so couldn’t attack the corners properly. This hasn’t happened before so I don’t understand at the moment, we will need to dig in to that and really analyse ahead of tomorrow. Our biggest challenge was finding a stable balance from rear to front, we’ve been working hard and chasing this all weekend. Tomorrow is going to be tricky for everyone, we of course hope it will be more positive than today and we can make some moves, but it is a bit of an unknown at the moment.

It was a frustrating day today. Ultimately, we didn’t have the pace to fight for the podium, but my race came undone at the first corner. It is disappointing when that happens after all the efforts the team put in over the weekend. I made a good start but got caught in the dirty air behind Piastri. I locked up to avoid him and picked up some front-wing damage. That compromised my opening stint, and we lost time in the pit stop having to change the wing itself.

Our pace hasn’t been as strong as it was prior to the summer break, either here or in Zandvoort. As a team, we will go away, put the effort in, and find out why that is. Other teams seem to have taken a step forward so we will need to work diligently to get back onto terms with them.

I think this track exploits more of our issues, I think we have a disconnection with the balance and at this downforce level it is even harder. I had a great run on my scrub tyre in Q3 but then I put the new tyre on and everything gets really peaky and difficult - we need to understand why that is. I lost my final lap in Q3 and went off a little, I knew Max was behind me so I tried to give him a bit of a tow but it didn’t make much impact. It is a really poor performance, something I am really disappointed with, as the whole Team is. Everything is a little too sensible with the car at the moment and that is the main issue we are currently facing. Generally speaking, we are struggling a little too much with the balance and how on the edge things are, the car is tricky to play around with. But tomorrow is what matters and we have to keep the motivation high across the whole Team because we need to have a strong race. I believe that is where our strength will lie, the long run pace looks positive so let’s look to minimise the damage with both cars and score some good points.

It was a good race and I’m happy. I felt like we did a decent job, whilst also struggling quite a lot with the tyres. The front left was always a problem throughout so I had to manage this, and I couldn’t really stop the graining, which was always a problem for us. In the end, we did a good job of surviving while relying on Kevin’s penalty to get P9. Haas had us beat this weekend on race pace, so we still have some work to do, but with another upgrade to come, hopefully, we can get back into this point-scoring rhythm for the remaining races of the season. Also, well done to Franco on a great race, he did an impressive job on his first weekend in F1.

I’m happy with our race, but I'm disappointed with the penalty. I made slight contact with Pierre Gasly at Turn 4 and we both missed the corner but there was no damage on either car, it had no consequence, plus we were racing. I’m happy with today's point, the balance and performance in the car, our strategy – we can take that away.

It was a difficult race today. We maximised the pace the best we could. I was able to push the car to its limits so I'm happy in that regard, but we did struggle with the relative pace of the car on track. We were in the points at the start of the race and were able to undercut [Alex] Albon thinking all teams would execute a two-stop race. It wasn’t enough at the end to recover from that extra pit stop. We were only 0.2 seconds behind [Kevin] Magnussen and a second behind Albon so it is disappointing not to score any points today. We will keep pushing.

I’m really happy to have completed my first Formula 1 race, it’s a moment I will never forget. The race was physically tough as I’m a bit tired and sore now but there are plenty of positives to take. Before today I had never driven more than eight laps in a row in the FW46 and today there were 53 to do with very high track temps. I think I did a good job of managing the tyres to make the one-stop work and the race pace was strong. I’m very happy for the team. It was great to give them a positive result from my first race after all the hard work they’ve put in to get me up to speed this weekend. Of course, there are still things to work on but I’m very excited to jump back in the car in two weeks to go racing again.

Ultimately, we weren’t quick enough today, even without the penalties. We tried, and I was enjoying the wheel-to-wheel racing at the start, but I made contact with Nico in turn eight. I spoke to him after the race, I thought we had space, but felt the contact so didn’t give him enough room, and I apologised. It’s tough as you race hard but the smallest margins make a difference. The car felt ok after, and we pushed as hard as we could with what we had. I was trying to get the maximum out of the car from Friday afternoon to today. Personally, I feel a lot better this weekend, and we were close to scoring points.

We tried everything this weekend to cover all possible scenarios. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to score any points. This wasn’t an easy race for anyone, and we need to review and understand which strategy could have been best. We split strategy and I went for a one stopper initially, so stayed out quite long during the first stint and many other teams did the same. I was struggling with the tyres towards the end of the first stint, so maybe Medium-Hard would have worked better in hindsight. On the positive side, there were some solid performance improvements from Friday to Saturday, which we will now need to understand better to be able to stay on top of the issues we were experiencing in Zandvoort. We go again in Baku in two weeks' time, where we need to make sure we can come back to the points.

It was a long afternoon, and I am very disappointed as I thought that somehow, we would have more potential in the race compared to Qualifying yesterday. We had a brake issue yesterday which we found out after Qualifying and which carried into this afternoon. The car was bouncing a lot, and we had a lack of grip. We will now regroup and analyse the reasons why we weren’t able to be competitive this weekend compared to Zandvoort. We will understand and review the weekend with the objective to come back stronger in Baku.

It has been a pretty clean, uneventful race for us; we went for a one-stop strategy, starting with the hard compound, as we tried something different and hoped to get lucky with the timing of a potential Safety Car. Unfortunately, that didn’t really work out for us, but I think it was good to give it a try. Looking back at how the race unfolded, I wouldn’t have done anything different: we gained a few positions on track, getting to P16 on merit, but that was really the most we could do. We haven’t made a huge progress in terms of pace, our weekend had started well, but we couldn’t really keep up with the momentum nor improve much: still, it has surely been a better weekend compared to Zandvoort. We have a lot of work ahead of us to make a further step, which is what we’ll be working in the run-up to the next back-to-back in Baku and Singapore.

It was a very poor first lap; going into Turn 8 I got a good tow from Daniel Ricciardo so I took the outside line, but he swept across and didn’t really leave me space, so we made contact and that took me off a bit. The engine went into anti-stall so that took a while to sort out and I lost a few more positions – more or less that was when the race was looking very difficult. Then the racing incident with Yuki Tsunoda meant I had to come in for a front wing change, plus the penalty I had to serve, you lose so much time – so it was game over. It was very good that Kevin was there and had a strong drive, there is that to take away.

Our pace today wasn’t strong enough to be fighting closer to the points – especially in a smooth race, without any interruptions or big shocks. While our pace was clearly an improvement over last weekend in Zandvoort, we are on the backfoot in terms of performance compared to our direct competitors. This weekend, we’ve seen some improvement in single-lap pace, but it’s clear that we need to find the car’s sweet spot and execute a flawless weekend to get the best possible result. Rather than relying on luck, our focus as a team is on putting our heads down and continuing to work hard to find those crucial few tenths of a second that will bring us closer to the top ten.

Today’s result was more or less what we expected. We haven’t had the pace to challenge all weekend, and we knew there wasn’t going to be much we could do from P17. We went into the race open to a one or two-stop strategy, but elected to stop twice when we saw the levels of tyre degradation. We then stopped for a third time at the end to try and take the fastest lap. Ultimately, we know we’re missing the performance we need, and the focus remains on trying to bring that to the car.

I’m pretty frustrated today, it’s a shame as my race finished a few laps after the start due to a contact with Nico (Hulkenberg). I tried to leave as much space as possible, but it seemed he locked up, causing him to lose control and crash into me. Unfortunately, we had to retire the car as we got some damage on the floor. I felt it straight away and tried to continue, but the car was sliding around and I simply wasn’t able to drive it. We have Baku and Singapore next, our car should perform well there, so hopefully we’ll have good weekends ahead.