Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

I am really pleased to take the team’s first victory of the season. I felt in control throughout and was able to manage the race to bring home the win. With the slightly higher temperatures, we thought we may struggle a little more than we saw on Friday. We did a good job of managing the tyres though and had the pace to hold off the chasing pack. A big well done and thank you to everyone at Brackley and Brixworth and a massive congratulations to Kimi on taking his first of what I am sure will be many podiums.

We look to have made a step forward with our car in recent races. We have typically gone well in Montreal though and we knew this race would likely suit us a little more than others. We can’t get ahead of ourselves as there is still plenty of work for us to do to get into the fight for victories more regularly. I am looking forward to trying to do that next time out in Austria.

Today we definitely maximised everything that we had available. We drove quite a defensive race today and it was quite tough out there. The tyre degradation was quite high and in the first two stints we were going through the tyres quite quickly. We were quite aggressive with our strategy to stay ahead and during the last pit stop I thought it might be difficult to make it to the end. The last stint helped us a bit with the lighter fuel load and we were a bit more kind on the tyres which was positive. If you look at the whole race this was the maximum result possible. We didn’t really have the pace to fight upfront and had a bit too much degradation to be in the fight for the win, so I’m happy to be P2. The gap wasn’t big to George but didn’t think I had the pace to fight for the win. There are lots of positives from the weekend: as a Team we did the best performance possible, got it right and our car was in a decent window. Looking to the next race we have a bit of work to do with our tyre management and the degradation but lots of positives to take forward.

That was a very intense and stressful race! I am really happy to take my first podium in F1 though. The start was the key to achieving that. I managed to get track position on Piastri and that enabled us to show our pace. At moments I was able to catch Verstappen and put him under pressure. In the final stint, I think I pushed a little too hard in the early stages and that made it difficult near the end. I was able to defend from the McLarens though and bring the car home in P3.

I want to say thank you to everyone at Brackley and Brixworth. They have been working so hard to improve the car and I am glad to be able to get a result like this and have both our cars on the podium. It is a special moment for me personally and I am looking forward to building on it in the coming races.

It was a tricky race. It wasn’t my best start and then we were a little on the backfoot from there. In the second half of the race, the pace was good, it was just tough to overtake. We come away with 12 points which is what we could have maximised today.

P5 was the best we could do today. We could maybe have tried to do something different with the strategy, but at the end of the day, it wouldn’t have changed much for the outcome of the race. Most of all, our starting position was what put us at a disadvantage.

It’s quite a specific track, so I don’t think that too much of what we saw in terms of performance will carry on to the coming races. We will regroup and come back stronger.

P6 is a good result considering the cards we were dealt today. The car felt good in the opening laps and I was optimistic about what we could do, but unfortunately we picked up significant damage early on which cost us a lot of downforce. From that point, it was tough to manage the balance and pace, and some brake issues in the middle stint made things even harder. We’re not where we need to be, but we’re fully focused on the steps we need to take to compete at the front. That’s our priority heading into Austria.

It was a good race for us today. I felt happy with the car and as expected managing the tyres was difficult. We went into the race and knew eighth position would be more our realistic pace and I couldn\'t keep the faster cars behind. It seems our race pace is not as competitive as Qualifying and it\'s something which we need to look into going forward. Let\'s see if anything comes from the investigations later and we\'ll look ahead to Austria and our home race in Silverstone.

I’m really happy with today’s result - another strong race and more points on the board, which is always satisfying. I was able to stay out of trouble and take advantage of some battling ahead between Franco [Colapinto] and Alex [Albon] into Turn 8, which allowed me to gain a couple of positions exiting Turn 9. From there, it was about tyre management and maintaining consistent pace, making sure we executed the race cleanly. 

We’ve now shown competitive pace at two very different circuits which also means the recent update has been a clear step forward. Especially under race condition our car was more consistent, better balanced, and overall much more predictable to drive. That kind of stability really allows you to push when it counts.

I’m pleased with all the work the team has done this weekend; we maximized our potential because it wasn’t clear-cut that our strategy was going to be better before the race, but it paid off to take the risk today. We managed to deliver a solid race, achieve good laps in clear air which was important, so we overcut quite a lot of cars, and then we brought the car home. It’s a good reward for the team to get something out of our 200th race, and to seize the opportunity as they don’t come every day.

Good to at least score one point today, but I’m pretty frustrated as I spent the race managing an issue, so I couldn’t even compete properly. We did a good job to bring the car home and save a point but, as a team, we need to avoid these situations. We didn’t show our maximum potential this weekend for one reason or the other and with such a tight field, it obviously affects the final outcome. We’ll regroup and go back at it again in Europe in a couple of weeks.

Honestly, we had more pace in the car today than it looked, but with the strategy we got stuck in traffic with other people starting on the hard tire. In a DRS train it’s really hard to overtake, so we had a lot more pace and once I got into free air, we had that, but I spent the race stuck. There could’ve been a bit more today, but I’m happy the team scored points in their 200th race.

The pace felt okay today so we were able to make up some positions after starting in P18. On the medium tyre I was in more traffic and just couldn’t maximise in the dirty air, the safety car also was not at the best time for our race. It was at least a clean race after a messy day yesterday, and we made some improvements and upgrades to the car this weekend so we are going in a positive direction. This was the best we could achieve today, but I want more. I’m looking forward to debriefing with the Team, resetting, and then going to Austria next as it is a track I really like. My focus is on building up the confidence and trust in the car and hopefully can get good results in Austria in front of a home crowd.

A tough afternoon for us and certainly not what we expected or wanted. We put ourselves in a good position starting from tenth on the grid and I had a good start to the race to overtake some cars on the first lap. Of course, from there, points are the target and we were a bit unfortunate on strategy and reaching traffic, which impacted our race. I do think the car had good pace today and we need to understand what we can do better next time. It’s a very tough track, one we expected to be challenging for us, so we can certainly take positives from some parts of the weekend. I am happy with the progress I made through the weekend despite the end result and for sure I want to continue that into Austria.

It was a tough weekend overall for me, but I am pleased to see the team score again. We were very close to Q2 in qualifying, but not making the cut yesterday compromised our Sunday: starting from P15 with faster cars like the Williams, Red Bull, and RB behind made it difficult. I had to push a lot on the tyres to keep ahead, and that in turn affected how the race progressed for me. We tried a strategy with a long first stint on the hard tyre, hoping for a Safety Car that came far too late, and once you\'re 20 seconds back after a pit stop, there\'s only so much you can recover, even on fresh tyres. I feel there was more potential - we could’ve gained another couple of positions on pace alone - but we need to understand what more we can do to start scoring points.

Nico is doing a great job again, probably extracting all this car has to give, but knowing how close we are on a Saturday shows that our performance is close. We’re usually within half a tenth of each other in qualifying but, in this midfield, that can make a huge difference, as we’ve seen in the last couple of weekends. I think I’m extracting the pace, but I also need to learn how to maximise outcomes over the course of the race, and this will come with experience, weekend after weekend. I’m not going to complain—it\'s about reviewing everything, learning, and coming back stronger. We’ve made progress since Barcelona, even if this track didn’t suit us as much, and I’m confident we’re going in the right direction.

We have lots to review after today’s race. It was always going to be difficult starting from the Pit Lane after tactical changes to the car under parc ferme conditions. We tried something a little different on strategy and, in the end, it was a frustrating afternoon being stuck behind cars and struggling on the straights to make any overtakes. We need to aim to start higher up on the grid as for sure we can be much more competitive with better track position. I think our pace was decent when we had clean air but, unfortunately, we were just stuck too long in traffic. We will regroup and aim to have a better weekend in Austria next time out.

It was a difficult Sunday here in Montréal. I had high graining on the medium tyres at the start of the race and unfortunately, I think we pitted a little bit too late, which made us lose a few places. After that, I just got stuck in a DRS train for the rest of the race, and towards the end, we didn’t really have much pace and therefore got past from other cars. Since the start of the weekend we’ve been struggling a bit with the car, so we’ll review everything together with the team and we’ll get back pushing always more in Austria in two weeks time.

It\'s been a long rough day and I\'m not so pleased with this weekend overall. It was always going to be difficult starting the race from P17, but I also didn\'t feel like the car had the pace today to make up any positions. We go again in Austria in two weeks time. We will work hard to find areas of improvement in all areas until then.

Our number one rule is to not make contact with your team-mate, and unfortunately that is what happened today. I apologise to Oscar and the team. I thought I had a small opportunity, but with hindsight, I should never have gone for that move. I’ve paid the price and I’m glad nothing adverse happened to Oscar. I will put it behind me and learn from today’s mistake to come back stronger as a team in Austria.

It’s been a frustrating one today. We retired with the PU issue, but the race was already over for us. I struggled on the first lap, and then we tried to make a one stop work, but with the graining today it was really hard to manage the tyres. Sometimes you can drive around it but not today. Race strategy is also something we are usually strong at, but we struggled today and that’s not to blame the team, but it just wasn’t quite there, so we’ll have a look at it and come back stronger next time.

It was always going to be a difficult race starting from the pit lane, but we took the decision to install a new PU after a tough Quali yesterday. A cooling issue towards the end of today\'s race meant we unfortunately had to retire, which is a shame given the pace of the car this weekend was good. We\'ll keep working on the speed and I\'ll keep working on myself to reset ahead of Austria.