Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

P1! I’m so happy to have won my second Grand Prix. This is the best win of my career. I’m proud of what we did today. I tried at the start of the race to get in front, but once I dropped out of DRS, I just didn't have the pace. After the stop, I saw we were pretty close again, and I felt like we had a little bit of extra grip. I had to go for it because I knew that if I didn't get past at the start of the stint, I was never going to get past. So, I went for a pretty big lunge, but managed to pull it up, and then hung on for dear life for the next 35 laps. It was hard work, but I think that definitely goes down as one of my better races.
We’re now leading the World Championship. It’s a massive team effort and everyone at McLaren deserves full credit for the turnaround that’s happened in my 18 months here. The car has improved, but I think they’ve helped me improve as well: 12 months ago, I definitely wasn’t capable of achieving results like this. I’m excited to see what the future holds.

We lost the victory based on two factors today. The first was tyre management on our out-lap from the pits. We expected it to take a long time for everyone to warm up their tyres, which was the case for our car, but not at all for McLaren, who got their tyres up to temperature immediately and gained a big amount of time there. The second was not fighting Oscar harder when he overtook. I knew we had a long race ahead and my target was to look after my tyres, stay within DRS range and overtake him later down the line. However, we underestimated the speed they had on the straights today, running a lower downforce package than us, which made them too fast to attempt to overtake them. Overall, it wasn’t the best day for our team, but we now head to Singapore and will come back stronger.

It was a really strange race today. It was very difficult on the Medium tyre in my first stint. I was over one second off the ultimate pace and finding it hard to control the rear tyre surface temperatures. On the Hard tyre in my second stint, the car felt brilliant. In the final 20 laps, I was lapping one second quicker than those at the very front. It is hard to work out exactly why this was and is a little frustrating.

We were fortunate to get onto the podium and I am glad that both Carlos (Sainz) and Checo (Perez) are OK. We were having a relatively quiet run to P5 after I got past Verstappen, but we will take it. It is a good reward for all the efforts of the team after a challenging weekend on the whole.

A great result for the team, with a great race from both sides. First of all, congrats to Oscar for another win, he deserves it. I think I had a great race. I got fastest lap and a good number of points from where we were so I’m very happy. We’re the team that gained the most points today, so I think we should be very satisfied with that. It’s the maximum we could have done today, and we’ve taken the lead in the Constructors’ Championship. A job well done by everyone.

Today ended up being a worse case scenario, but the most important thing is that Checo is okay. In the race, we were stuck behind Lando and Alex and had some issues with the balance and the car was jumping around a lot and losing contact with the tarmac. We ultimately still had some issues with changes that we made before qualifying and we just paid the price today. Most of the time we make a change going into qualifying and it pays off, but sometimes it doesn’t and it is just a risk you have to make. There is a fix, but we found out too late to make any changes. The initial changes we made were positive; we were going well and we just made some changes in qualifying that tipped us over the edge. For the Championship, we are going to work together as a Team and the fight is not over. You win or lose as a Team and we won’t give up. It is as simple as that.

I'm happy with the result today and we were able to captalise on some action on the final few laps to take sixth position. It was a little bit of a lonely race for me with nobody ahead to fight with. We were able to follow the trend around us on a one-stop strategy and we maintained the position to those chasing us behind. It was still a tough race with no time to relax. We executed everything well with a good strategy and pitstops, so I'm happy we've come away from this weekend in Baku with some well-earned points.

We know how difficult it is to get P9’s and P10’s in races, so to get P7 and P8 is luxurious and we’ll take that! We’ve moved in front of Alpine now in the championship, which was our target by the end of the year. It shows we’ve made good progress with the upgrade. It’s another weekend when we’ve been similar to the Aston on pace and we’ve scored points for the second race in a row. We were much quicker than we expected to be compared to the top teams and it was nice to be in that fight. Let’s see next week but, for this weekend, it’s been strong.

To score my first points in Formula 1 is a fantastic feeling. I’m so proud of this team for what we’ve already been able to achieve together. I’m delighted to have points on the board to show for all the hard work and effort we’ve been putting in with it only being my second race. We had good pace today being very close to the Aston. To finish seventh and eighth alongside Alex means we’re now P8 in the Constructors’ Championship which is a good step forward and a motivator for the team. We still need to keep learning and improving together as it’s a long season with many races left. I’m looking forward to racing in Singapore for the first time next weekend.

Today was a difficult race. We had a good day on Friday, but the rest of the weekend was tough. We made some changes heading into Saturday that didn’t work out, but we had to live with them. We also knew it would be challenging to overtake today. Despite the long straight, it is hard to follow through the second sector. Franco Colapinto and Oliver Bearman, who I was racing for a lot of the afternoon, did such a great job. It is great to see the youngsters like them coming through and doing so well. For their first and second races, it was very impressive.

Despite how tough my own race was, the positives are that George had a decent race and was able to score some good points for the team. We’ve also got lots of data to work through ahead of Singapore. We’ve got some upgrades coming before the end of the year so hopefully we can make a step closer to those at the front soon.

I wasn’t going to finish in the points but there was some misfortune in front of me which allowed me to do so. I missed some pace in the first stint and lost a few positions there and that put me a bit behind in the race as I got some traffic and lost some time. In the second stint, I’m quite happy with the performance. It’s tough when you’re trying to overtake, you really have to push the tires and they get hot, so I was pushing hard to overtake Franco (Colapinto), and eventually Lewis overtook me, so he was using his experience there to do that.

It was actually going better than expected to be honest; we managed to find some rhythm and pace today which I’m very happy and pleased about. Unfortunately, in the last few laps I faced some issues, and with the accident at the end I got caught off guard. For me, it was a straight safety car or even red flag as there was some real carnage down the straight. It was instead then a green flag, and I lost positions there and lost the result unfortunately. The whole track was covered in debris, and I ran over a massive piece which I couldn’t see because of a car in front of me. It was a pretty crazy two last laps, but unfortunately not in our favor.

On one side, I would say that was one of my best races of the season from a driving point of view. It was a good start from eighteenth on the grid and we were on the limit every corner, every lap and really extracted the maximum from the car. There was not much more we could have done, finishing twelfth at the chequered flag. On the other side, though, simply, we were just too slow this weekend. We took a gamble on strategy, running long in the hope that there might be some late action. It came too late in the end so we could not benefit from it. We made good steps forward from Friday but, clearly, it was a challenging weekend for the team. We will get on top of it and we need to come back with a better weekend performance in Singapore.

It was a tough race. The start felt okay; the medium runners in front of me looked like they were struggling, and we were able to catch them. I was on the hard tyre and tried to use it where I could by going long and finding the pace. After a few laps, we picked up a lot of graining, which got worse and worse over 10 laps, causing us to be a few seconds off the pace. The Team could see some other cars were clearing the graining, however it definitely took us a lot longer. When we did, we were able to come back and have a bit of pace again, but we had lost a lot of ground. I’ve never experienced graining like that, the swing of lap time was up to four seconds. We need to understand why we had more graining for longer. Looking ahead, I love the Marina Bay Street Circuit, so hopefully we can have a stronger weekend there.

I think the race went smoothly and cleanly on my end. We executed our strategy well, but our pace wasn’t strong enough to fight closer to the points. That said, it’s encouraging to see progress this weekend, especially in terms of racecraft. We were able to compete with a few other teams, which is a positive sign. There’s still a long road ahead, and while we know we’re not quite where we want to be yet, we’ll keep fighting and working together as a team to close the gap.

It has been a disappointing weekend and a tricky race for us today here in Baku. We now want to turn the page quickly and our focus must be towards the next race, which comes in a few days’ time in Singapore. As a team, we will regroup and concentrate on maximising all available running time to build the performance and be race ready and get a chance to fight in the points.

It was a tough day for us. We tried to split the car strategies, to try and maximise returns, but it didn't really work out in the end. The main issue was the rapid degradation of the medium tyres at the start, forcing us into an early pit stop. The car felt better on the hard compound, but even that tyre started to struggle towards the end. Despite some luck, with a few rivals dropping out of contention, we couldn't achieve a balanced stint and missed out on the points. Now we need to regroup and try again in Singapore.

Today was very unfortunate, the last person I wanted to have a contact with is Carlos and to both end our weekends like that is a disaster for both of us. I feel that we exited turn two with lots of room between the cars and as Charles was moving to the inside, Carlos looked to pick up the tow from him. As he picked up speed, he moved very quickly, touched my front tyre and it was game over for me. It is a shame for the Team and the Championship, after the race we had today and the work we have done all weekend it’s hard for everyone to take. I feel super sad for the Team, but the positive thing is the pace is back, the changes to the car seem to have put us back in contention. We were fighting for the win and looking like we were going to have a strong result – that’s what we need to take out of today. We need to keep it up with the progress we have made and hopefully in the coming races we can be very strong.

It's a real shame, the important thing is that both Checo (Perez) and I are ok after the crash but it’s obviously frustrating. I stayed on the normal racing line and didn’t do anything strange, the same as every other lap, so I didn’t expect the contact on my rear tyre. It’s part of racing but it hurts and we lost a lot of points today. I was having a very good race and was very quick. I think P3 or even P2 would’ve been possible, but it is what it is. Time to turn the page and focus on Singapore.

My race was pretty much over on the first lap when [Yuki] Tsunoda and I made contact. I dived down the inside - I'm not sure if he saw me or not - but he closed the door and I had to pit with a puncture. We're all racing hard on the opening lap and these things happen, but it left us on the back foot for the rest of the race. With nine laps to go I started feeling an issue with the brake pedal and it was getting worse with each lap. This isn't a circuit to take any risks at, and we were well out of the points positions, so it made sense to retire the car. It's been a frustrating weekend, but I'm looking forward to Singapore.

Very frustrated to have this happen two races in a row. A very short race, losing the opportunity to score points, which would still have been tricky, but you never know on these street races. Starting P12 is obviously not ideal and means there are a lot of risks of getting damage. We just need to step up a little bit and qualify in the top 10, so we can get a better start. In terms of what happened on track, it felt like an unnecessary move from him [Stroll]. Sending it in like that, with a nothing-to-lose approach. I’m not sure what he had to gain, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. It was a shame, not the way I wanted to end my race, but we’ll come back strong in Singapore.