Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Heute ist ein besonderer Tag und es ist ein ganz besonderes Gefühl, die Pole auf heimischem Boden vor all diesen fantastischen Fans hier in Silverstone einzufahren. Sie waren absolut unglaublich. Herzlichen Dank an alle für die Unterstützung. Das Wochenende verlief nicht ganz rund. Ich fand während dem Training nicht ganz die richtige Balance. Obwohl es mein Lieblingsabschnitt auf dieser Strecke ist, war es durch den Wind für mich besonders im Mittelsektor schwierig. Zum Glück kam im Qualifying alles zusammen. Es war ein super Gefühl. Ich saß in diesem Auto und sah auf der Runde in meinen Augenwinkeln überall die vielen Flaggen. Mein Bruder ist ebenfalls hier und ich habe so viele Nachrichten auf den Plakaten auf den Tribünen sowie in den sozialen Netzwerken gesehen. Ich kann allen gar nicht genug für ihre Unterstützung danken. Ich bin darüber wirklich sehr, sehr glücklich!

Mein erster Run im Q3 war schnell und ich dachte, dass ich es hinbekommen hätte. Aber als ich auf mein Display sah, war Lewis noch eine Zehntel schneller. Das war wirklich ärgerlich! Im zweiten Run lag ich auf Kurs, um mich zu verbessern, aber irgendetwas fühlte sich mit meinem linken Vorderreifen falsch an. Ich hatte keinen Grip. Das müssen wir uns später ansehen. Bislang war es ein kniffliges Wochenende für mich. Ich hatte Schwierigkeiten mit dem Auto, aber noch ist morgen alles möglich. Das haben wir beim letzten Rennen gesehen. Auch möchte ich mich erneut bei den Jungs in der Box bedanken. Sie hatten heute Vormittag im Training wieder viel Arbeit, um mein Auto nach dem Problem wieder auf die Strecke zu bringen. Es ist absolut großartig, hier vor so vielen Zuschauern zu fahren. Die Fans lieben den Rennsport und sie feuern selbst andere Fahrer als ihre britischen Landsleute an. Das ist richtig cool. Auch sie haben sich einen Applaus verdient.

It was a fantastic day for us at our home grand prix and it's great to have us P3 and P4. I enjoyed fighting closely with Valtteri and exchanging lap times. The wind into Copse was really strong and that affected the balance of the car, so I made sure to be cautious and not to waste a lap by running wide. It's very important for us to show that we have the pace to get both cars ahead of everyone except from Mercedes. Tomorrow won't be easy but we are ready for it and it will be an exciting race.

We knew how much we could improve today but we were still a little bit surprised it was so much and that's a good thing because tomorrow could be a very good race for us. Of course you always want to be in front of your teammate but we had a good battle and Felipe improved a bit more at the end. It's great to be in front of our closest championship rivals with both of our cars. That is a really good starting point and we now have the upper hand for the podium fight.

It was not an easy qualifying, with the strong wind the handling was not ideal and it was very tricky for everybody, because the conditions kept changing from run to run and from corner to corner. We know that when is windy it’s not very easy for us, we improved our car on that side but here it was still difficult to get the lap right, putting all the sectors together. Obviously we can’t be happy for fifth and sixth position, it’s a bit disappointing, but we tried our best and hopefully tomorrow we’ll do better. I don’t think we’re slipping back, it’s just the different conditions we had today. In the race we’ll see what is going to happen, we’ll push to gain some positions

It was more difficult than we expected so we’ll have to have a look at that, but clearly it’s not ‘clean’ from my side. I struggled a bit to find the right balance. Tomorrow could be a different story, because our race pace should be fine. Today was not the best day. Hopefully tomorrow will be an exciting race, we can do plenty of things, we have the pace. I know that is difficult to pass, especially the Williams as they have a good straightline speed, but we’ll see. Maybe we can find something for tomorrow. For sure it’s not the best starting position. In Q3 we were not happy with either run. The out lap was not great, I nearly crashed with Felipe in last attempt, I think there was a bit of confusion because Nico was going so slow…nobody to blame though. In the end I made a mistake in the final lap, but in general, we were not quick enough.

Our starting position is the maximum we could have achieved for today. I drove everything out of the car, I don’t think there was anything left to extract. We came here without any big expectations and the car is handling really well this weekend. I have a good feeling about this track and looking forward to the race tomorrow. The race conditions can be quite challenging but we are hoping to get some good points.

I'm happy, I really enjoy this track! We did the maximum today and I don't think we could've extracted much more from the car. We've looked strong all weekend and I've been optimistic the whole time. I'm satisfied with today's P8. Tomorrow we expect a tough race with plenty of battles, but as always we will try our best to finish in the position we are starting in or further ahead and score more points.

I enjoyed today. Silverstone is one of those fun tracks, especially on low fuel with new tyres, and I’m feeling satisfied with our performance. My laps were clean and tidy, and it was a smooth session. The updates we brought here are working really well and without them I don’t think it would have been possible to be in the top ten today. So from that perspective I’m very happy because we know there is more to come as we explore and learn about our car. For this weekend, the long run pace has looked competitive, but the cars ahead of me also look very quick and we will have to work hard to come away with points.

It was a mixed qualifying for me. My fastest time was deleted and it’s something we have to review as I don’t think I went off, we’ll check the video and see. The car felt really nice in the high-speed corners, it was a lot of fun to drive, but we have been struggling through the lowspeed corners and I think that’s where we have been losing most of our time, along with the straights. If I start from P10, we’ll see what we can do with strategy to finish further up the grid.

I am disappointed to have missed out on Q3 because the car was definitely capable of making the cut. I was expecting to be in the top ten, but in the end I missed out by a couple of hundredths, which was unfortunate. The weekend so far has been a bit of a struggle for me, trying different options with the set-up and getting used to the new car. The b-spec car is a big step forward, but we are still exploring the limits of what it can do. When we understand it fully, I think there is great potential. For the race tomorrow, I think we can be competitive. Eleventh place is not a bad place to start and I think we can fight well from there to get some points.

It’s difficult to find a balance here and small improvments mean huge gains here at Silverstone,” he said. “We had to change the setup a lot for the option tyres, we miss some downforce on the harder tyres and that’s where it costs us a little bit. It’s a track where a small mistake can cost you, so that could create some opportunities for us in the race.

To be honest, I don't really know what happened in today's qualifying session, because we've been really competitive during the whole weekend and then, as soon as I went into Q1, I suffered from oversteer and I was not happy with the balance, so in the end I just wasn't able to put a lap together. We need to look into this and find out why this happened. It's disappointing because I was really looking forward to this qualifying session, but the car wasn't behaving how I wanted it to and I couldn't improve. Hopefully we can do something before tomorrow, we showed good pace in the long runs so hopefully we can have a good race.

Of course, I’m not happy with my position on the grid but we’ve seen before that we are better in races than qualifying, so we hope that is the case for Silverstone,” he said. “The race is long as we’re working on getting the best pace possible. We expected to fight for the top ten but we knew teams like Red Bull had the extra downforce so we expected this,” he said. “But we are more competitive than we’ve shown and we could have been 11th and 12th today. We just lacked something extra. The race is long and we’re working on getting the best pace possible.

Wir wussten, dass dies ein schwieriges Wochenende für uns wird. Aber von Training zu Training machten wir Fortschritte mit dem Auto, was wichtig war. Im Qualifying hatte ich ein gutes Gefühl im Auto. Uns war bewusst, dass es schwierig werden würde, sich für Q2 zu qualifizieren, aber wir haben es geschafft. Schade, dass wir hier nicht konkurrenzfähiger sind. Wir können unsere Performance jedoch immer noch maximieren. Im morgigen Rennen kann noch viel passieren.

Ich bin etwas enttäuscht, dass die Qualifikation für mich bereits nach Q1 zu Ende war. Und das obwohl wir in den freien Trainings eine gute Balance des Autos finden konnten. Im Qualifying hatte ich Schwierigkeiten mit den Reifen. Ich konnte diese nicht optimal zum Arbeiten bringen. Nichtsdestotrotz werde ich morgen im Rennen um Positionen kämpfen.

“I had a problem at the end of FP3 this morning. There was no clear resolution to the problem, but we found a suitable solution, and everything started working after we reset it. “That meant I went into qualifying having done very few laps. I didn't start the session knowing enough about either the set-up or the conditions, but, given those limitations, I think we got the best from the car. I don’t think I could’ve gone much quicker than that today. “We knew this race would be tough for us – as will fast circuits like Spa and Monza – but we all appreciate that this is a long-term project, and we’re definitely building for the future.”

“I don’t know why, but the Prime tyre has suited me far better than the Option this weekend. Normally, you add turns of front wing to balance the car for the Option tyre, but we’ve been taking front wing out this weekend. “I’ve been struggling with the balance a little bit – hopefully we’ll learn a lot tomorrow, that’s all we can do, really. “Unfortunately, this is our situation right now – and it’s not easy for a team of this stature and experience. There’s always an amazing atmosphere at Silverstone – and today is no exception – but this hurts in front of my home crowd. “Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.”

I’m really happy with my performance today. Things really couldn’t have gone any better for me in my first British Grand Prix qualifying session. The upgrades have been working well for us all weekend and they’ve given me more confidence in the high-speed corners. In my second run everything just came together for the lap and I was able to show the potential of the developments we brought here, so it’s a really nice result for the team’s hard work over the past few months. It’s been a very special weekend so far; the support here at Silverstone has been incredible. Tomorrow is the big day of course and I can’t wait to line up on the grid and go racing in front of my home crowd. The conditions could be quite mixed, so it could make for an interesting race. Who knows what could happen?!

Unfortunately it wasn’t a very positive qualifying for me today, which is a real shame at our home race. On the last lap I had some snap oversteer in Turn 9, and my time got deleted. We haven’t had a strong weekend on my side, so we need to analyse that and understand why. I’m hopeful that we can have a better race tomorrow though.