Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

It feels good to bring home a victory at the start of this triple header. The whole team did an amazing job to make this happen and a 1-2 brings us a good amount of points in the fight for the Constructors’ title. It’s an optimistic target, but we will never stop dreaming until it is done.

I had a good start, leveraging the fact that Max (Verstappen) pushed hard into turn 1, and Lando (Norris) defended from him. I lined up my exit and overtook both of them. After that, I knew it would be a matter of taking good care of my tyres and just bringing it home. 

Our pace was really strong from the first lap onwards and I felt that I could pull away from Max quite comfortably. We’ve made a really good step in terms of our race trim, and hopefully, we will keep it up in the next few races. We will do everything to maximise our results and at the end of the year, we will do the maths and see where we stand.

For the team this was basically the perfect weekend, so mega congrats to everyone both here and at home. My race was compromised at the start as I got blocked by Lando (Norris) and Max (Verstappen) fighting in front of me, which meant I did the first stint in Max’s dirty air. We had an issue and for some laps I was concerned but we managed to address it and used our pace to undercut Max and finish in P2.

It’s great to be able to go on the attack with this car and we want to fight until the last race for the Constructors’ Championship. We have to continue working like this for the remaining races, starting in Mexico City next week.

Today wasn't the best for us but the most important thing is that we have gained a lead in the Championship, which means a lot for the Team. I tried everything I could but we just didn't have the pace that we have had over the last few days and unfortunately couldn't fight the Ferraris on track. We had some balance issues, it was difficult to turn and break and I couldn't attack the corners because of the tyres. The battle with Lando at the end was cool as we were racing hard and it was actually a lot of fun. You cannot overtake outside the white line and I have lost a podium here before overtaking outside the track, so that is unfortunate but it is the rules. We need to analyse a bit more why we didn't have the same pace as we did yesterday as we did expect to be more competitive, which is a shame. However, this weekend we have made some positive steps and have had flashes where it looked like we were coming back to the front, so we are going in the right direction. It is still not enough but we will keep working and improving the car where we can. As we said, ultimately the fact that we have extended the gap is the biggest thing for us.

A frustrating afternoon. Of course, starting first and finishing fourth is not what we hoped, but it was a challenging field with the Ferraris looking strong all weekend. I was confident in a podium finish today but unfortunately, we lost it through a decision out of our hands. So, a tough weekend and we have work to do. We’ll debrief as a team and go again next weekend in Mexico to secure more strong points in our championship push.

It was a bit of a lonely afternoon, to be honest, starting and finishing in P5. On the positive side, we scored some decent points, which is important in the Constructors’ Championship fight. We just didn’t quite have the pace of Ferrari today. The field is still extremely tight, and this weekend showed that. We’ll be aiming to come back stronger in Mexico.

I was pleased with how today went from my side. We didn’t know what the race would bring in terms of opportunities but going from the pit lane to P6, and finishing ahead of Red Bull, meant that we made the best of a difficult situation. We had good pace throughout, in particular on the Hard compound tyre. We were able to extend that first stint and give ourselves fresher rubber with which to attack in the closing laps.

We will work hard in the coming days to analyse the weekend as a whole. The car can still be tricky at times; Lewis doesn’t end races in the gravel as we saw today. When we find its sweet spot, it is capable of strong performances but that is difficult to deliver consistently. I think the car had the potential to fight for the podium this weekend, but we need to widen its operating window. We will therefore be looking to bounce back next weekend in Mexico.

I lost quite a bit of time getting stuck behind the midfield pack at the beginning and the people who were on the hard seemed to have the best strategy, therefore I lost position to George in the end. It was quite strange towards the end of the first stint, my pace was better but I started to suffer badly with front pitching and the ride was quite bad. Generally, it then got a bit worse, and I thought it was maybe that tyre, but then I fitted the hard and it was the same issue and the same pace. I was really struggling with a bit of car balance today and it awkward to drive. The upgrade seems to help us quite a bit in the high speed and I did not have the complete upgrade this weekend, so that's part of it and the rest of it is car balance. I am not sure how much having the total package would have put us back into contention. We lacked pace the whole weekend; it has not been a straightforward weekend and we have plenty of work to do. I am looking forward to next week but we need to make sure we learn from Austin to make sure Mexico is more successful.

I’m very pleased with that, we maximized what was possible and at the end we were actually getting closer to Perez in a Red Bull. I had a suspicion it could be a one-stop race, and it was, although halfway through the first stint it felt really poor and horrible. The tires recovered and came back to me, and going long opened the door for this race and this result. That was key, so two lots of points this weekend and two points in front of RB, it’s been a good weekend.

It was a good race; I didn’t expect that to be honest. We had a great first lap, I just went for every little gap and made up some positions. We made a really good step up with the car yesterday, which we hoped would replicate in the race today and thankfully it did. The car was really strong and it did exactly what we hoped it would do. The Hard [tyre] works well for us, and we had good pace too. When I boxed and we got some clean air we were able to keep extending longer than we’d planned and I think for me, doing yesterday’s sprint, I took notes from what others were doing, which really helped. The whole team have put a lot of effort into preparing me for this, a lot of extra hours knowing it was my first weekend back in the car so a big thanks to everyone in the team for making this happen. Mexico is a very different track so we’ll see what we can do there next week.

After a tough Saturday we managed to bounce back in the race. We showed great strength as a team to turn it around today. RB, Haas and Alpine have all been strong this weekend so it was going to be difficult to get in the points. I knew we had good race pace and when I found my rhythm in the clean air we really pushed on. I’ve learned a lot from my first Sprint weekend which can only benefit me going forward. I still need to keep learning to help the team progress in the right direction. Hopefully we can build on this in the next two races of the triple header.

We didn’t get any points today although we had a good chance of getting some. We were talking about a one-stopper, but we didn’t manage that.

It’s been a frustrating afternoon where we did not fully extract the maximum potential. We had too many sub-optimal situations throughout the race, which is a pity as we started in a really good position and we had much higher ambitions than finishing outside the points. Things slipped away and we could have managed our race better, which is something we will review for next time. We covered the early pit-stop of Magnussen, then had a slow stop but, generally, we were lacking pace on the Hard tyre to be in a stronger position. It looks like our rivals are just that bit quicker at the moment and we must keep understanding our package and extracting everything from it. We have Mexico City next week – a unique track where we have another opportunity to learn and progress.

It was a tough race for us today and we dropped back a few places from our starting position. I think we outperformed the car’s natural position in Qualifying and we knew it would be an uphill battle to stay inside the top ten. It’s been a difficult weekend and we have lots to analyse over the next few days to get better for Mexico.

It was a tough and frustrating race today. I started on mediums on a one-stop race, while other drivers had different strategies starting on the hard tyres to keep the first stint longer before pitting for new mediums. We’ll have a look at it to understand if something could have been done better, as well as to get some learnings for the future. Unfortunately, I made a mistake in the second part of the race, where I lost control and spun in Turn 1 and that certainly didn’t help our race. It was a very strange moment and I’m not sure what happened there, so it’s something we’ll definitely need to review. Mexico is close, I’ll come back stronger.

We lacked pace compared to the other cars today. I had a bit of messy restart with a snap at Turn 10 but I think that, even without that snap, the result would have been the same. The car didn’t have the performance for us to fight for positions. We’ve still got work ahead us to improve this car and we’ll be pushing hard to make that happen.

It’s been a tough weekend. I feel like I got a little bit pinched on Turn 1 and once I had damage, that was it. It was a race in that I thought we were going to retire the car but were trying to play the long game and likely help out Franco with his race. The car was okay, but I feel like I’ve been struggling all weekend and we just haven’t been able to find the right spot with the Soft tyres. It’s a disappointing result but it’s only the beginning of the triple header, so hopefully we can make some changes and come back stronger in Mexico.

As a team, we tried everything we could today, converting to a one-stop strategy based on the tyre performance and our competitors' races. It was right to try, as you never know what may happen later in the race, but it didn’t work out as we had to extend our second stint a bit too long. While we could go the pace of our direct competition very early in the race, which is definitely a positive we can build on, we still lacked pace towards the end of the stints. We've made a step forward in race pace, but we still need to continue developing the car to address this deficit and improve our future performances.

Unfortunately, today my race was compromised by Turn 1 after being hit from behind, which caused me to spin and I fell to the back of the field. I managed to recover a few positions throughout the race, however, we were not in contention for much else after that. We decided right at the end of the race to pit and attempt the Fastest Lap on Softs, which we managed to achieve. We have positives to take from this weekend. The upgrades have shown to be working, especially in Qualifying yesterday, so I look forward to the team continuing to work in this direction and improve the car. Next up is Mexico City and hopefully we can be in a better position to be in contention for points.

Today I had a really good start and made up quite a few places. The first stint went well, and I gave everything at the safety car restart, knowing the others were on the hard compound. Unfortunately - and I apologise to the team here - I carried too much speed into Turn One, hit a bump at the wrong angle and lost the rear when I tried to attack the cars ahead. After that, the pace was tricky in the second stint, and I experienced some drop-off where we need to understand what happened – but the first 10 laps felt quite promising considering where we’ve been in recent races. Ultimately, it wasn't enough today, but we’ll keep pushing and come back stronger for the next race.

I had a great start, and I thought we were in for a positive race. I was just bringing the tyres in when I had the accident, which was a really strange moment. I wasn’t pushing too hard but the car bounced a little into turn 19, I lost the back end and that was that. We measured a large gust of wind, up to 40 kph, as I turned in which likely didn’t help. George had a similar spin to me yesterday so we will work hard to analyse both incidents and see what we can learn from them.

I am sorry to the whole team who have worked so hard to bring these updates but onwards and upwards from here. Hopefully we can get the car in a better place for next week in Mexico. We will all be working incredibly hard to do so.