Fahrerstimmen – Tag 2

Overall, in qualifying the laps have been very nice and it was a great result for the Team. In the last lap I tried to push a bit more and I was gaining quite nicely in sector one, but ran out of tyres at the end so lost a bit of time which was a shame. We have to work on our long runs as we have not been fully happy with these and still feel like we can work to control the balance of the car a bit more. It wasn’t perfect, but to still be on pole on a lap that I felt like could have been better, is great. We made some good changes within the car and I really enjoyed sector one; around here it is really fun to drive and the car is improving every year, especially in the high speed. All in all, the Team has a front row start which is a perfect start to the race tomorrow, but I expect it to be very competitive. It is great to be here, the support is always amazing and hopefully we can give the fans a good race.

We have had a good weekend so far and made some really nice progress throughout qualifying today. Unfortunately, in the end we couldn’t get totally hooked in for the final lap, I didn’t get a nice exit into my lap and that was probably enough to miss pole today. I think generally we are a lot better placed with the car, if you remember last year here, we were seven tenths off Max and it was probably the hardest circuit in terms of balance, this season things are looking a lot different and the confidence is coming back. Having a nice balance around Suzuka doesn’t compare to anything else in the world, today was very enjoyable. Max and I have been on par all weekend, I think we will be close tomorrow and we have everything to fight for.

I’m very happy with today, we had a competitive car, and I could fight in qualifying with good laps, especially in Q3. It's always enjoyable to come here in front of the fans and I'm pleased to have secured P3 on the grid going into tomorrow's race.
We’ve had a good car all weekend and taken steps forward which is pleasing. We're working hard and that hard work is gradually paying off. Today’s a good start to the weekend but tomorrow’s where we have the opportunity to score strong points as a team.

I'm happy with my qualifying and with the lap in Q3, as I think we maximised our potential today. We knew since FP3 that this weekend we were lacking a bit over one lap, but starting P4 leaves us in a good position to fight tomorrow. We’ve made good steps in terms of race pace and I hope we will be able to exploit it during the race and fight for a podium position. Let's go!

I am very happy with fifth position today. It's always a very special experience Qualifying in Suzuka, with the low fuel loads and fresh tyres and everything felt good in the car today. Perhaps it's a little unexpected to be as competitive as we were. Looking back at last year, we were over one-second from pole position in Suzuka and now we are only four tenths away, so it seems we are going in the right direction. It's too soon to say whether our updates have made a significant difference, but we'll look at all the data we have. We have usually been faster in Qualifying compared to the Race, so let's see what happens on Sunday.

P6 in quali, I just didn’t quite have it from Q2 onwards, struggling to find the rhythm which is frustrating. I’ve got a couple of areas to focus on overnight with my engineers, but it seems very tight out there. Tomorrow’s a good opportunity for me to improve and secure points in the race.

Qualifying was generally a really good session. I think we’ve made some good improvements to the car and its balance so far this weekend. I was overall much happier in the car than I have been this year, although there are clear areas of improvement. We have taken steps in the right direction though. When we raced here just six months ago, we were over one second adrift and we’ve closed that gap to the front a little, and to our nearest competitors. Of course I was hoping for more and we are never going to be happy with P7, but we know our car is a work in progress.

Tomorrow’s race will be all about tyre degradation. Our long run pace looked similar to others on Friday, so we will see if that is the case on Sunday. I think it will be very close tomorrow so I hope we can maximise all the various factors and take home some good points.

I’m not happy with our qualifying today. The feeling in the car was quite good, but the pace was just not there, so we will look at the data and assess what exactly this was down to.Our car is slightly stronger in race pace than qualifying pace this year, however, it is quite difficult to overtake on this track, so we will aim for a good start and take any opportunity to fight our way back to the front in the race.

It was so tight out there between ourselves, the McLarens, the Ferraris, and the Aston Martins. After FP3, we knew there would only be one tenth or two between all those cars and so it proved. If you didn’t do a great lap you would end up P9 and that is what happened with me today. I made a mistake on my final lap; it’s a little bit disappointing but that is how it goes sometimes. It isn’t the most difficult race to overtake at though, and with tyre degradation and different strategies, hopefully we can move forward tomorrow. A lot can certainly happen.

We’ve started this season with several high-speed circuits. We know that is where our weakness is with this car, and we knew this weekend wouldn’t be our best. It is good that we are exposing these weaknesses as it gives us the understanding of the platform we are building on and adding performance to. It sets a clear direction for us to improve.

I felt a little pressure coming into this weekend after our strong performance in Australia, but I’d say it’s good pressure and I’m very happy I was able to get into Q3 in front of my family, friends and home crowd. The qualifying itself wasn’t as easy as we expected, but overall, as a team we did a fantastic job. I’m continuing to learn how to maximise the car and its setup to extract the best out of it, and without everyone, the engineers and mechanics, on track and at the factory, supporting me, I wouldn’t have achieved this result and I’m very appreciative of them all. Daniel also did a great job which means there’s definitely potential to score points, maybe even more than one, so we’ll do our best. The first step is done, and the second one is top 10 in the race tomorrow, which I haven’t achieved here yet, but we’ll put it together and try to have a perfect race!

I have mixed emotions today. There’s a bit of frustration but it’s also encouraging to be so close to Q3 after a tricky start to the year. Considering that yesterday I had only a few laps, and they were in damp conditions, today’s qualifying was a good session as we were very close to making it inside the top 10. I drove some laps this morning in FP3 and then worked hard to find those few tenths for quali. I’m pleased for us to be pretty much there, but it’s not Q3. It’s just frustrating to be knocked out by just half a tenth as it would have been nice to give it to the guys today. After yesterday, we certainly see some positives that are encouraging. For tomorrow, the race pace has been alright, and I’ll start on the clean side of the grid. I really think points are possible, so I’ll aim to be in the top 10 in Lap 1 as well as in Lap 53.

I’m really happy and very pleased with the performance, they were good, clean laps – I enjoyed qualifying. Last year, I had a messy session, so this time I was really keen to have a clean one and I think we really exploited the maximum out of our package, even if it’s really marginal that we missed Q3 as that really was as good as it is for us. Yesterday, things weren’t looking so great in FP1, as expected our package isn’t super happy around Suzuka, so I’ll take P12 happily.

I was really happy with how our car felt today, both in the morning session and during qualifying. It’s good to be back in Q2 and to be knocking on the door for Q3 as well. Of course, it would have been even nicer to make it into the top ten, but this result is proof that we are heading in the right direction with the upgrades we brought in the last couple of events – and for this we must pay tribute to the team back home in Hinwil for their continued support. We have made some small steps forward throughout the weekend and, looking ahead to tomorrow, I am confident that if we get everything right, we will be able to put up a decent battle with the cars around us and bring home some points.

We’ve been struggling a lot this weekend and I didn’t feel comfortable in the car, which is frustrating but it’s where we expected to be. The way we’ve gone with the car, we’ve made some corners better but also, it’s made some worse. Around this circuit, you can’t be sliding because the track is so aggressive and it tears up the tyres. Normally we can get away with this when the track is smooth, but when it’s rough like this, we pay quite a big price. I also suffered a lot of overheating and when you’re having to do tyre management through corners to save the tyres, it’s tricky to manage. Looking to tomorrow, the car felt okay in the few long runs we’ve done during FP3, however strategy is going to be important, so let’s see how we go.

It was great to see the fans out in force today, as always here at Suzuka. It’s a shame they did not see too much running in the afternoon, so hopefully the rest of the weekend will be better. Today was about having a first look at how the car behaves with some of the new updates. It seemed to be in line with expectations in Free Practice 1 and we aimed to try something different for Free Practice 2, but we could not do that with the mixed conditions. Given the limited running it’s hard to get a full picture, but we will see what we can learn and analyse overnight to prepare for final practice. It will be a busy session for everyone to gather as much information as possible before heading into Qualifying.

I just didn't have the pace I needed in Qualifying today and we don't yet understand why. I think I was pushing to the limit of what my car was capable of, but I was lacking the speed to get out of Q3. The update package seems to be working on Fernando's AMR24, so we'll take a look this evening to see if there's anything else that could have been impacting my car. There's a lot of work to do ahead of the Grand Prix; we'll have to make the most of any opportunities that come our way tomorrow.

We tried a few things in Free Practice 1 today, which was the only running we did on Practice day here in Japan. There was some rain in the afternoon, quite unfortunately timed, so it meant we remained inside the garage for the one-hour duration. We learnt a lot in the morning session with the new parts. Everything worked as expected and we have some valuable data to run through to confirm a few more things. That’s always the most important thing in Practice, especially when you have upgrades running for the first time. We’ll see what we can do to improve the car ahead of Qualifying tomorrow. There have been no surprises so far and all eyes are on the rest of the weekend.

I think we improved the car for qualifying, but we started quite far from where we were with the set-up from yesterday. It’s not been the cleanest run-up to qualifying, we’ll run this set-up tomorrow, but we improved the car and the consistency – it’s still just lacking pace. We knew this track wasn’t going to be our track, but on top of that, on our side of the garage, we’ve maybe just missed the beat a little bit on the build up to the weekend. Anyway, we have a race tomorrow, and hopefully – like the first three races of the season, we can make some ground up in that. We’ll certainly be trying.

After what happened yesterday and only getting a few laps in FP3 this morning, it was a pretty good turnaround. We put the car in a good place for Qualifying considering the limited amount of running and made the right decisions. I don’t think there was a lot left on the table. A tenth and a half from Q2 just shows how tight it is. I’m pretty happy with the way I drove but we’re missing a little bit this weekend as a team in terms of pace. Tomorrow will be a bit of a degradation race and how we manage that in Sector 1 will be key. We’ll try have a good start, manage the race and hopefully that leaves us in a decent spot.

Today has been a tough day for me. Unfortunately, due to a technical issue, I missed the end of FP3 and had to go from my long-run practice straight to qualifying. Given the lack of preparation, it was quite difficult for me to predict the car’s behaviour, and while I tried to maximise everything I could, I simply didn’t have enough grip on the rear in the last sector, where I lost out. I believe more time to prepare for my quali run would have put me in a more comfortable position. It's a very tight grid, and while fighting for the points might depend on how much overtaking will be possible, I’m confident that I should be able to make up places. Tomorrow is a new day, and as a team we’ll continue to give it our all.