Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

We couldn’t have wished for a better result today in our final race with Honda here together. It’s been amazing and I’m really proud of what we have done this weekend. We made all of the right calls during the race, were constantly pushing and our tyres weren’t overheating so much due to the colder tyre temperature which helped us. Yesterday was a beautiful day for us and the key to the win was to start from pole. We maximised everything we could and to follow this up with the win is fantastic. We know our limitations and still have work to do. We are just finding where we can push the car to the limit and need to maximise everything that we can to get the best out of the car and make it more balanced. Finally, this is a perfect send off for Honda and our relationship is something I will never forget. I’ve enjoyed my time with them and how they work: they are so professional and dedicated and they have given me so much. Together to win four Driver’s Championships and two Constructors’ Championships is unbelievable. It did cross my mind whilst driving that it would be insane to win here today and at a home track for Honda, so that gave me a bit of motivation as well. It’s a proper send off and we couldn’t have wished for a better weekend.

A tough race today, it was flat-out from start to finish but the pace was too similar to do anything. Max drove a good race with no mistakes, and it ultimately came down to Qualifying positions today. It’s still been a very good weekend for the team securing more points together, but we will continue to work hard as we head to the next one in Bahrain.

A good haul of points and a nice result for the team. I think the pace today was really good and I was very happy with that. We got close for the overtake a few times, but track position around here is just so important. I think yesterday was the day where you effectively won the race, and we just didn’t put it all together, so I\'ll absolutely take the podium. We go to Bahrain with a lot of positives, and ready to challenge again.

It was a bit of a lonely race for me today. P4 is not a result we are ever satisfied with, but looking at the positives of this weekend, the work we did on Friday in terms of set-up adjustment and the learnings we take into the next races have paid off. We made good progress, but we have to keep our heads down and keep working before we come to any conclusions. The front runners still have quite an advantage in terms of pace. For now, we have to focus on maximizing the points we bring home, which we did today, and hopefully later in the season we can fight for the top positions.

Today’s race was a frustrating one. With the top six cars all finishing where they started, it was a Grand Prix dictated by yesterday’s qualifying performance. It was a relatively easy one-stop strategy and, on a circuit that is very difficult to overtake at, there were few opportunities to make forward progress. We tried our best to make the undercut work on Leclerc at the end of our first stint. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite have the pace to pull it off with the traffic that we had to clear in those two laps. Whatever strategy we had attempted though, I think we would have ultimately finished P5.

Our frustration mainly comes from the fact that we didn’t optimise qualifying yesterday. With the pace we showed over practice, we had a car that could have been competing for the front two rows of the grid. It is the first qualifying session of the year where we haven’t maximised our full potential. That was a shame, but we can bounce back straight away in Bahrain. It is a very different track to Suzuka, much hotter and a more abrasive circuit. It will be fascinating to see where everyone’s relative performance is and is going to be another test for everyone.

Today was a good race from my side. I am happy with how it went and the speed we were able to show. Once I got in free air, the pace really improved, and I was able to extend my stint on the Medium tyre. That was a good feeling. Once we switched to the Hard tyre, the car still felt positive. I was able to put in some consistent lap times. I was catching the cars ahead but ran out of time in the end to get on the back of them. It was also a nice feeling to lead the race for a few laps and become the youngest driver in F1 history to have done so. The next goal is to do that on the only lap that matters: the final one!

It has been a good weekend overall. It’s a great track and one that I felt that I was getting on top of by the end of the weekend. Every time I get in the car, I am building my learning and feeling more comfortable with the W16. I am looking forward to heading to Bahrain. Hopefully we can keep improving and begin to fight for some of the positions further forward than we managed today.

That was a tough race for us today. We didn’t have the pace to challenge the top three, and that’s something we’ll be working hard to address ahead of the next rounds. I went with a setup that felt good overall, but it just didn’t give me everything I needed out there. The team’s been doing an incredible job, and we’ll keep pushing together to find those gains. The fans have been amazing all weekend – their energy and support means a lot.

That was a long and exhausting race, but we did the maximum we could have done today, and honestly, I feel like we executed a perfect race, so a very well done to the team. Achieving P8 was our target today as Lewis was out of reach. We put it all together maximizing our performance, and therefore we’ve been able to achieve this result on merit, without benefitting from any issues of the others. I couldn’t be happier to be rewarded with my first points in F1 here in Suzuka after a weekend like that. I felt comfortable in the car and I think it suited me very well. Today there was almost no degradation on track, so I was flat out all time and I didn’t really leave anything on the table. Now we look at racing in Bahrain next week, and it gives us confidence as I think we can be up there too.

I think we need the sprinklers out! We maybe weren’t as quick as we wanted to be but today has been very disjointed. We know where we need to improve though, so we’ll do some tuning overnight. I’m feeling good in the car, I’m confident and I hope we can score some points this weekend.

I think we achieved the maximum today, not quite enough pace to fight the Williams or the VCARB so P10 it is, but I enjoyed my lonely race. Australia was a big shock, and China was an even bigger shock for all of us as to come back with such great pace without changing anything on the car. This weekend we brought a slightly different floor to help the bouncing we’ve been struggling with and it seems like so far, so good. We have a lot of positives from this weekend so we’ll take a point and look forward to Bahrain.

It was a difficult race today at Suzuka and despite our best efforts we missed out on the points. The first half of the race I had Pierre [Gasly] within one-second and then Yuki [Tsunoda] close for the second half of the race, so I couldn\'t make a mistake. Suzuka is a great circuit, and I really enjoy racing here, but it\'s very hard to overtake on this track. We need to improve our car performance going forward and I\'m looking forward to that development.

It’s tough today because I wanted to at least finish in the points. I am happy with the race in terms of what I have learnt but not in terms of result, so it’s mixed feelings. I was feeling a lot of support from the crowd, every lap it felt more and I wanted to give something more back to them. At least I know I did the maximum I could in the race and these 53 laps gave me so much to learn about the car. I now know what kind of things I need to work on. I was stuck behind cars all day in traffic so it’s hard to know the full race pace of this car but, every lap of the 53, I was building up my confidence in the car. That confidence level is now completely different from the beginning of the weekend to now, I feel positive about that, but I am still disappointed because it is a home Grand Prix and it’s only once a year. I need to reset before Bahrain and I am sure compared to what I was feeling, in terms of car and in terms of confidence it will naturally be better there. I will understand more about the car, and I am excited for the next one, I just need to do better in qualifying. A big congrats to Max, it is good to see one of the Honda engines win at our home Grand Prix, in their final year of collaborating with Red Bull. And finally, a special thanks to the Japanese fans, I feel like there were more than ever at the track and I feel very honoured to represent them. I am very happy to be able to drive in front of them as an Oracle Red Bull Racing driver, with a Honda engine.

It was not our race today and there are definitely a few things for us to analyse. It felt like we did everything we could in terms of performance. The car felt good, well balanced and we know where we are lacking a bit of pace. It was an intense first lap, quite dicey with Fernando [Alonso] and we missed out on a place there even if it was a fun battle. We lost a bit of time at the pit-stop so we’ll review what happened there and we know how important track position is around here in terms of traffic and pace management. We gave it our best and it was not enough to be near the points. We have a good chance next week in Bahrain where the car seemed to perform well in pre-season testing. Conditions will be different to then, though, but it’s a chance to reset and hopefully we can come away with a much better outcome.

An eventful Friday here in Suzuka. During FP1 we managed to test a few things on the car and do some good running. However, FP2 was very disrupted and I really couldn’t get a proper read of the things we wanted to try out, although it seemed we were working in the right direction. It’s going to be a hectic FP3 for everyone tomorrow, there’s a lot of things to try and the wind direction is going to change, so the cars may feel very different compared to today. I hope Jack is feeling well after his incident and tomorrow he can be back at it.

It was good to get another full race distance under my belt and continue to gain experience and understanding of the package. Given our starting position, we went more aggressive with tyre strategy with the Softs at the start, which allowed us to attack and gave us the best chance to move forward with the undercut. That also meant we ran a longer second stint on the Hard tyres [38 laps] and had to defend towards the end. I think we did well to keep Nico [Hülkenberg] at bay, but it was a pity we could not keep Carlos [Sainz] behind on the newer Softs. It was positive to move forward at a track that’s difficult to overtake and the race pace also felt strong despite no high fuel running. We will take a couple of days between races to rest and recover. I’m looking forward to going again in Bahrain where the conditions will be completely different again.

The car didn’t feel too bad today, and I would have liked the chance to explore its full potential a bit more. But Suzuka is a track where overtaking is notoriously difficult, and that really defined the race. I spent most of the time in traffic, which made it hard to make any real progress and ultimately turned it into a fairly uneventful race. That’s obviously a bit frustrating. We know there’s still work to do – both in terms of overall pace and car characteristics – and today’s race underlined that once again. It‘s still early in the season and we continue to learn with every race weekend.

Firstly, a massive well done to Isack for getting his first points in F1 today, he did a great job. On our side, it was a tough start, lap one was pretty tricky; I went a little bit wide in turn 13, and then it was just a train from there. It was hard to overtake, but I don’t think from where we were it would have been possible to move from there. There’s been positives to take from this weekend, in general, the car has been pretty good, obviously it takes some time to adjust and get used to it. It’s been a pretty crazy few weeks and months, I just want to get into a groove and get racing. We get to go again next week with a new style of track, so we’ll keep chipping away.

The aim was to pick up a safety car as we started on the hard compound – we didn’t have much to lose trying this strategy – and still managed to get a good start. Sadly, without a safety car it wasn’t the best strategy and we knew that, we tried our best – but it is more data, and more information to compare for next race. The important thing is that we transfer the good performance we saw on Ollie’s car, so a big well done to him, and to the team for bringing updates after Australia.

Even though I was obviously aiming for more than the final result, I’m leaving Suzuka satisfied with how the weekend unfolded. I have learned a lot – it’s been a steady learning curve since Melbourne, and I am feeling more in control with each session. I want to thank the team both trackside and back at base in Hinwil for this, as they are always by my side with their unwavering support. Unfortunately, I didn’t get off to the best start today and found myself at the back of the pack. Climbing back through the field proved difficult, especially at a circuit like Suzuka where overtaking is notoriously tough. I’m taking all the experience and learnings with me as we head to Bahrain for the second leg of this triple header.

Ultimately there wasn\'t much we could do today – we tried to make up some positions at the start, but it wasn\'t possible. It was still an opportunity to learn what we could, with set-ups for Bahrain, and we\'ll take that forward. It was just one of those days and we will see what we can do next weekend.