Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

I’m really pleased with that result. It’s never straightforward around here and we were under pressure for much of the race, particularly in the final stint, so to convert pole into the win is very satisfying.

The team did a great job with the strategy and gave me a car that I could manage well across the race. In those conditions, it’s about keeping things simple, focusing on just driving, and I think we executed that well today.

It’s also great to score strong points together as a team. Kimi did a good job to recover and get himself back into the fight, which was important for the overall result.

We know it’s very tight at the front and our competitors are pushing us hard, so we have to keep working to find more performance. For now, though, we can take the positives from this weekend and look ahead to Silverstone next week.

It was a very good race for us today. The first two laps were quite fun and the first half felt really good and fun to drive. Then it was basically just about trying to manage our tyres, especially after the battles with Lewis. Something happened with the rear axle which made me lose pace which is why I was not able to fight at the end. In hindsight we could have done the undercut to jump ahead and I think I had the degradation edge over George but overall I am pleased with P2. We did some good racing and I didn’t expect us to be that strong against the Mercedes. It was a great effort from the team: they have worked really hard to get the upgrades to the car so thank you very much to everyone. It was better than expected and the race pace was a lot better than we thought. I didn’t think we would fight for the win when I jumped in the car this morning, so to finish sitting here in the top 3 is a really positive result for us!

It was not a straightforward race from my side. The first stint wasn’t where it needed to be and I struggled a bit with the brakes early on. After that, the pace was much better and I was able to get back into the fight. I think if we had a few more laps, it could have been an interesting battle for P2 at the end.

Congratulations to George on the win today. He did a great job managing the race, especially in the final stint under pressure. It’s a strong result for the whole team to have both cars scoring well and bringing home good points.

There is still a lot for me to learn, and this weekend has been a good reminder of that. I will take the lessons and come back stronger next weekend.

I’m looking forward to Silverstone. It’s always a special circuit and, with it being a sprint weekend, it will be important to be on it from the first session.

I’m really happy with today’s performance. It felt like a good race, and we were able to execute well and apply some things I’ve learned over the last few weeks. The pace was stronger than we expected, and to be able to successfully challenge and beat Ferrari was a definite positive for the team. I feel like we got the absolute most out of the car, and that\'s a good feeling.

However, we still need to find more pace if we want to be up there challenging the top three consistently. We don’t have a specific area of weakness; we just need more overall performance and grip to take that next step. We\'ll keep chipping away at it, and we\'ll focus on carrying this momentum into the next few races. I\'m looking forward to the challenge.

It was an extremely hot and demanding race. I had some good battles at certain points and at the start of the race I thought maybe we were in with a good chance. The team did a great job with the pitstops but it’s clear we’re still struggling on the straights and tyre degradation was quite high, which in the end made things challenging.
Going into the race, we felt a three-stop strategy could have been in play due to the track temperatures. It’s always difficult to know how things would have played out, but I don’t think much more was possible, given where we were today. We’ve got a week until Silverstone and will look at everything we learnt and see what we can do there.

l was happy with my race start, it was a big improvement from Barcelona. Starting from eighth, we had a very aggressive race. I was running out of tyres at the end of my stints, so it was probably not the fastest race for me, but I still managed to gain two places. You could feel the upgrade in the race pace, and I think we had the second quickest car today so I was very happy with that. I still need to feel more comfortable in the car to extract the most from it, but it is the best race car we’ve had so far, and it is delivering. I think on a cooler track, hopefully next week, we can be a bit more competitive again.

Overall, today was still an okay result for the team, especially finishing ahead of one of the Ferraris. It was a difficult day for everyone out there though, with the extreme temperatures. We lost crucial track position on the opening lap and again during the pit stop, which was an important factor in the race today. Once you lose that ground, it\'s incredibly tough to make it back, so it was an unfortunate outcome for us, but the team stayed focused and put in a good shift to maximise what we could for the rest of the race.

We didn’t run any upgrades here like other teams, and the car is still behind the leaders in terms of performance, but that\'s something we know we need more time to improve. We will debrief everything as a team before heading to Silverstone, where I’m excited for the home crowd. We’re making progress, and if we tidy up Lap 1 and pit sequencing, we’ll give ourselves a better shot next time.

We went with a setup direction similar to the one I ran here last year, and it worked out well in qualifying. In the race, it was less effective and I struggled mainly with the rear, which caused me to slide around quite a bit. 
We had a strong weekend in terms of pace in Barcelona, so we know our upgrades worked. These new cars are very sensitive, so if you are not in the right window with the setup, you pay the consequence, and this is something we still have to learn more about and optimise going forward.
We have a lot of work to do ahead of Silverstone and I hope that we can come back stronger there as a team.

It was really hot out there today, but overall it was a good race. Tyre degradation was pretty much as we expected, which meant we were able to stick to our plan. In the first stint we were managing some very high brake temperatures, but that settled down after a few laps. There was also a miscommunication between Arvid and I, so I was surprised when we ended up racing into Turn 4, but I was able to regain the position after the second pit stop. We made a good step forward with the car this weekend, and the pace was strong throughout the race. To come away with double points is a great result for the team, and we’ll be looking to keep that momentum going. A sprint weekend at Silverstone gives us another great opportunity, and I’m really looking forward to getting back out there.

It was a positive race and it\'s nice to get another double-points result for the team. It wasn\'t the easiest race inside the car for me, as I struggled with braking at low speed and when I was on the Hard tyre. There are a few things that I could have managed better that we need to work on, so I will make sure to review them with the team. Now I\'m very much looking forward to racing in Silverstone next week. It will be my first home race in Formula One and I know it\'s going to be very special. The team has done an amazing job over the last few races to keep bringing upgrades and adding performance to the car, so I hope we can go there by keeping our recent great form as that would be very cool.

I think we did the best we could today. I overtook the Alpine ahead of me, and we had really decent pace for most of the race, but I just couldn\'t make it into the points as the VCARBs were just faster than us this weekend. It was a very clean race as well, so there wasn\'t really any chaos or retirements ahead to take advantage of unlike in the last few races.

Overall, we maximised everything we had this weekend. Our pace in qualifying was good, and the package we brought here worked as we expected. We just need to catch up a little bit to those ahead of us, and we\'ll do our best to get there – starting with Silverstone next week.

It was a difficult race to make much progress. We tried to create an advantage by extending the first stint, but with the amount of traffic and cars coming through to lap us, it didn’t really play out the way we had hoped. Looking back, maybe an earlier stop would have opened up a few more opportunities, but that’s easy to say afterwards.

The positive is that our race pace was quite good. We were able to match, and at times even be a little quicker than, the cars around us, but starting further back made it difficult to convert that into a result.

We’ll take the learnings into Silverstone. It’s a very different circuit and one I always enjoy, so hopefully we can put ourselves in a stronger position next weekend.

There\'s quite a lot for us to understand after that race which was probably the toughest of the season. It felt difficult out there in terms of grip and car balance and there was a lot of degradation. I had to do three stops because my tyres were wearing very quickly. The race didn\'t start the best way having a power issue on the straights. We lost positions and then were in traffic but ultimately, even in free air, we didn\'t have the pace and, as I said, had a lot of degradation. We were good on Sunday in Barcelona, and it was really warm there, so I was optimistic that would play in our favour compared to the Racing Bulls but that wasn\'t the case so there\'s a lot for us to work on. It\'s clear where we need to improve and I know the team will be looking for answers so we can react straight away before the Sprint weekend coming up at Silverstone.

It was a tough day, and we struggled for pace. We had a really bad start and lost out on a lot of track position, and after that I was just stuck. I’m lucky that I got the VSC, but on the same token, we were very slow throughout the race. I did my best but we were really nowhere near Audi, Racing Bulls, or Alpine, we were much slower. Today has been a surprise, but also the balance has been massively out today and I couldn’t get it to work. Based on what I was feeling in the car, I’m not that surprised.

It wasn\'t the easiest weekend and in general we couldn\'t really find the pace or the grip. We struggled to find a good balance and the race was very long and the high track surface temperatures meant we were putting a lot of energy into the tyres, particularly on the rears. The pace out of the box was strong on fresh tyres and then dropped off quite aggressively over the stint and the more sliding we had the hotter the tyres got. We need to understand a bit more what happened, as we usually are stronger in the race and that wasn\'t the case today. I had a very bad start with a lack of boost, which meant we were already fighting from the back from the opening lap. There were some good fights and battles out there, but we want to be fighting higher up, which we aim to do at Silverstone next weekend.

It\'s as expected, we know there\'s an issue on the car, but I think the positive is that we gave it our all this weekend. We exploited the maximum out of it and we tried to change every component we could, but we\'re still struggling with the same thing. The start was incredible, we\'ve worked really hard as a team to try and get that as best as we could. We surpassed everyone on the launch, and on the first lap, I almost managed to get into the points positions. I was with the Racing Bulls but I got lapped after a while, which is tough to take. We need to get the car healthy again, that\'s the first step. We\'re lacking a lot of load and the problem is that I\'m sliding on the tires. I can hold on for the first few laps, but after that, I\'m getting overtaken by other cars.

It’s been a poor weekend overall; we simply did not have the pace to compete with the midfield. We struggled with tyre deg and lacked pace throughout the medium and high-speed corners, so there is plenty to analyse ahead of the next race. We are currently experimenting and covering every avenue to find performance before our upgrades arrive. Looking ahead to Silverstone, we’ll bring a small upgrade package that we hope will move us closer to the likes of Haas and VCARB, so we’re hopeful these updates will be the start of us moving in the right direction.

Another tough race weekend for us, but nothing we didn’t expect. It was valuable to finish the race, continue collecting data, and keep improving operationally. We have made some progress in some of these areas over recent weeks and can hopefully continue so that we are ready when our upgrade arrives. Now, we look ahead to our home race next week at Silverstone, where we will aim to maximise everything in front of our supporters.

We had better race pace today than in practice but ultimately, we’re still quite far off the pace of our rivals. We made a few changes which made the car more drivable, and we were fighting cars we did not expect to fight, which is a positive sign. However, sadly a PU issue meant my car suddenly switched off. It\'s clear we are not where we want to be in terms of performance, but we’re bringing a small upgrade to Silverstone which will hopefully put us back in a more competitive position.

I felt comfortable in the car today and enjoyed my second stint as we managed the tyres well. We always knew we wouldn’t be up in the fight with anyone, but it was a good race between Fernando and myself. Unfortunately, we had a suspected ERS issue, which we need to look into further, and had to retire the car. We know it’s a very challenging time for everyone in the team, but everybody is working as a hard as they can to bring upgrades to the car so we need to be patient and hopefully in a few races time we will be a bit more in the mix.

Today was very unfortunate. In the traffic the brakes overheated and we had to retire. We were really in the mix and had the pace to fight with the Williams — I overtook Alex [Albon] on track so it’s a massive shame that we couldn’t make the most of it today. We really need to go deep on analysis and see what we can figure out for Silverstone.

We knew that this is one of the most challenging tracks for the brakes and with these high temperatures. We didn’t see any issues when we completed more laps during practice and then suddenly two laps into the race my brakes overheated. It\'s now the third DNF in a row for me, so this is the number one thing we need to get on top of as a team. We need to finish the races to learn more, so this will be our focus going forward.