Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Das war heute ein guter Arbeitstag für mich. Die Bedingungen waren wirklich schwierig, aber dank des Teams haben wir das Setup genau getroffen und alles hinbekommen. Ich fühle mich an diesem Wochenende großartig im Auto und konnte mich von Session zu Session steigern. Jetzt hoffe ich auf einen guten Start und möchte das Rennen von da an kontrollieren. Ich freue mich richtig auf morgen und kann das Rennen kaum erwarten. Das war ein guter Auftakt, aber erst am Sonntag kommt es drauf an...

Heute war es recht knifflig. Ich habe mein Bestes gegeben, aber es war nicht ganz schnell genug und Nico hat richtig gute Arbeit abgeliefert. Ich denke, er war an diesem Wochenende mit der Balance bislang etwas zufriedener als ich. Das Heck passte heute nicht ganz. Ich hatte Übersteuern und eine schlechte Traktion. Dadurch habe ich viel Zeit im Mittelsektor verloren. Platz zwei ist letztlich nicht allzu schlecht. Die Pole macht dir das Leben etwas einfacher, aber das bedeutet nicht, dass man nicht auch von einem anderen Startplatz gewinnen kann. Allgemein ist die Außenseite der Startaufstellung hier sauberer. Somit kann man normalerweise von dort gut starten. Die besten Möglichkeiten, um Positionen gutzumachen, sind der Start und die Boxenstopps. Überholen ist hier schwierig, aber ich werde wie immer mein Bestes geben. Man denkt bei jedem Rennen an die Weltmeisterschaft und ich werde weiter so fahren, wie ich das immer mache. Es mag bislang nicht mein bestes Wochenende gewesen sein, aber es ist noch nicht vorbei. Erst morgen zählt es.

It’s not a great place to be behind Nico and Lewis, but I think it’s the maximum we could do today, so I’m happy with qualifying. I think the week end has been a bit rougher compared to the last couple in terms of finding the balance and the feeling with the car: we’ll see what we can do tomorrow. We have improved the car, but the track conditions this week end are a bit tricky: the wind is very gusty, which is throwing the car around plus the tires are potentially a bit too hard and not really working. It seems that Mercedes is struggling less and the gap seems bigger than usual. Tomorrow we can put them under pressure: we’ll see, it’s a long race. Hopefully we’ll come up with a good strategy, we’ve saved one set of new tires for tomorrow as Mercedes did: I’m hoping we can stay with them for a long time. There’s room for improvements, hopefully the conditions tomorrow will come towards us and we’ll be a bit stronger again. We’ll do our best, as always

It's always a good feeling to split the Ferraris. We knew that if we got everything right we could be close and that's what happened. It was pretty much the maximum we could do today. If we can get a good start and get the strategy right, then maybe we can have a repeat of Bahrain and keep one of the Ferraris behind us. We have improved the race pace in the past few weeks but we know Ferrari are still strong on long runs, so it's up to us to do what we can to stay in front.

Wow! What a result! This is something very special and I'm very, very happy! A P5 and a P6 is an amazing achievement for the whole team. I wasn't totally comfortable with the car up until the qualifying session, but then in Q1's first run the car was right where I wanted it, I was feeling very confident and was able to build on that and score a very nice result. I can only put this down to a lot of hard work and analysis, and I have to thank the team for this. It won't be easy to finish the race in the top five, but it's free to dream and we will try our best to end the race in the highest position possible. I'm also very happy to be starting tomorrow's race from P5 here at home in Barcelona, in front of my home crowd. I could see all the fans cheering, it was a great feeling and I'd like to thank them all for their support. Let's push for a good result in the race tomorrow!

I'm not 100% happy with my lap as I was struggling a bit with the balance compared to this morning's practice session, but today's sixth place is still a positive result! To start tomorrow's race from fifth and sixth is a great achievement for us and there's a fantastic atmosphere right now in the team. The most important is for both of us to score points and that's what we'll fight for tomorrow. The car has been great the whole weekend and, even though it won't be easy, I will try to keep my position in the race.

So far the weekend has been more difficult than I wanted and today I was still struggling, for some reason my car was sliding around. After a difficult Friday I decided together with the team to go back to the old package because I wanted to make sure it was fine. We knew it would be a risk and it might be difficult but I don’t think that the result would have been as bad as it was today. In Q2 the feeling was pretty ok but then in Q3 it was difficult again, I had not much grip and did a bad lap.It’s one of those weekends in which things keep going a little wrong here and there, and today we also lost one set of Medium tyres because of a burning of a blanket. Tomorrow is another day and the race is a different story, obviously we start in a position that is not ideal , but we have a good package. If we have a good start we can go from there, I’m sure we have the speed to have a good race

"I did my best and so I can't be happy with P8," said Dany. "Maybe we have not got the most out of our upgrades just yet, but I'm sure the team can turn things around. At least this weekend, we have had a clean free practice and qualifying and, step by step we will get there," he added. "Nevertheless, tomorrow is the day that matters, the thing we are all fighting for and there is still everything to play for, so I can definitely aim to score some points starting from where I am on the grid."

I’m disappointed because I made a mistake in Turn 3 on my flying lap in Q3, running off the track which lost me a lot of time. I had to use two sets of options in Q2 to make sure that I was safe, so that one timed lap in Q3 had to be it. Without that mistake I could have been in the top five. The car's long run pace looked solid yesterday so provided we get a clean start I should be able to move forwards, so there is still a lot to play for tomorrow with a good amount of points on offer.

"I think tenth place must be my worst quali since I started with the team, so it wasn't the best day. I was frustrated mainly in sector 3. In Q1 and Q2 I felt it was my strongest sector, but then in the end we lost maybe half a second or more through there. And I don't really have an explanation for why that happened. I am disappointed with the outcome, as I had hoped to be at least P7 or P8. "From the long run I did in FP3 this morning, the car performed consistently and the balance was okay, so we should be okay on tyres tomorrow. We are not really quick enough down the straights, so we need a good start and then we will try and do something with strategy."

“We can be happy with where we are following qualifying,” he said. “After this morning we didn’t think that we’d make it into Q2 but we made good progress since FP3. P11 is quite a good position to be in, on a clean side of the grid and we’ll have plenty of new tyres for tomorrow’s race.” “Of course I’m a racer and I always want more, which sometimes can cost me a little bit but it’s been good to be able to fight this afternoon after a complicated start to the weekend.”

“We ran a different strategy for qualifying as we saw that the single lap pace potential wasn’t all there, so we’ve looked to the race and our strategy there to make up positions, especially with an extra set of new tyres relative to our rivals.”

“This is the first time both McLaren-Hondas have got into Q2 this season, so we’re definitely unlocking more of the car’s potential, and there’ll be more to come in the next couple of races. “Still, this is another step forward, and I hope we can fight for points tomorrow. We’re starting 13th, and our tyre management looks quite good, so I think it’s realistic to look at getting into the top 10, but we’ll need to attack throughout the race. ”To be honest, however, scoring one or two points tomorrow isn’t what we as a team are looking for, but it’s good for everyone’s motivation if we keep achieving tangible results – so scoring points will be a good step.”

“I’m a bit frustrated because we fitted new brakes for qualifying, and, every time I braked for Turn One, the car pulled to the left. On my last run in Q2, the team told me to warm the brakes in a different way, which meant they weren’t fully warmed up by the time I started my fast lap, so I had front locking for the first three corners. It felt a bit weird, so we need to look at the reasons why. “I hope that we can be relatively competitive and have a reasonable race tomorrow. We’re making solid progress – we got both cars into Q2 on merit, without any cars ahead of us suffering any issues. That’s a positive step for the whole team. “Yesterday, our long-run practice pace looked okay – a lot of teams turn their engines up for qualifying, and then turn them down again for the race; but we don’t have to do that, so we perhaps go into the race with a bit more potential than some of the cars ahead of us. “I’m looking forward to the race.”

Ich hatte ein recht gutes Gefühl vor dem Qualifying, nachdem wir im Anschluss an das dritte freie Training ein paar Änderungen vorgenommen haben. Während meines letzten Runs in Q2 habe ich jedoch zu viel riskiert, was dazu führte, dass ich mit Übersteuern zu kämpfen hatte. Die Hinterreifen überhitzten, als ich das Auto am Limit bewegte. Es wird womöglich kein einfaches Rennen für uns. Dennoch werden wir alles dafür tun, um Punkte zu kämpfen.

Ein enttäuschendes Resultat für uns. Wir hatten natürlich gehofft, in der Startaufstellung weiter vorne zu stehen. Mein erster Run in Q1 war in Ordnung. Bei meinem zweiten Versuch konnte ich zwar meine Rundenzeit verbessern, es hat allerdings nicht für Q2 gereicht. Wir müssen nun die Daten analysieren, um die Gründe dafür zu verstehen. Morgen müssen wir das Beste daraus machen.

Barcelona is always a big test of downforce and car balance, and that’s where we are struggling at the moment, so it made for a difficult day. To be honest, I was hoping for a bit more than P17 because I was P12 in final practice, but it was much hotter and windier this afternoon which didn’t help us. My final lap was not great, but it’s not easy when the car is working in such a narrow window. The long run performance yesterday looked more promising so I would like to think we can race with the Saubers and the McLarens tomorrow.

It hasn't been an ideal weekend so far, even though we always knew this was going to be one of our weaker circuits in qualifying. We just don’t have the performance in the car at the moment and, on a track with so many high-speed corners, that really hurts your lap time. However, we have to remain optimistic about the race: we may be starting in a low position, but that doesn't mean we cannot fight hard and we know that our race pace is looking more competitive. It’s going to be hard, but it's a long race and we will give everything to try and get a good result.

“I’m reasonably pleased with my qualifying today. I was able to improve on my first run despite making a small mistake, but the car is performing well and I’m looking forward to the race.”

A disappointing qualifying for me. I had a good first run and I was feeling comfortable with the car. After that I was called to the weighbridge but we had an ERS false alarm. When we got the car back to the garage we just ran out of time to do the turnaround. My car crew were pushing hard to try to get another run so thanks to them. It’s a shame that I didn’t get the chance to improve on my time but I’m looking forward to tomorrow and my home race.