Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

Dies ist eine unglaublich spannende Saison. Die vergangenen beiden Rennen waren für uns als Team richtig stark. Es ist außergewöhnlich, wie sich bislang alles in der zweiten Saisonhälfte entwickelt hat. Das Auto fühlte sich heute fantastisch an, besonders im ersten Stint. Da wir etwas Raum zum Atmen hatten, konnten wir die Lebensdauer der Reifen leicht etwas ausweiten. Valtteri hat fantastische Arbeit abgeliefert und diesen Doppelsieg komplettiert. Es ist super, zum ersten Mal seit sehr langer Zeit wieder zwei Rennen hintereinander zu gewinnen und die Führung in der Weltmeisterschaft zu übernehmen. Aber der Kampf geht weiter. Ferrari war in dieser Saison bislang richtig schnell, besonders auf Strecken, auf denen es auf viel Abtrieb ankommt. Es wird weiterhin sehr eng zwischen uns zugehen und wir benötigen den „Beast Mode“ bis zum Fallen der letzten karierten Flagge.

Ich bin von Platz vier gestartet und als Zweiter ins Ziel gekommen – damit bin ich zufrieden. Aber was mich noch mehr freut, ist der Doppelsieg für das Team! Aus meiner Sicht war es ein gutes Rennen, obwohl ich am Anfang einen Platz verloren habe. Zum Glück konnte ich ihn mir schnell zurückholen und dann den Williams sowie den Force India überholen. Danach war die Pace großartig und es machte mir richtig viel Spaß – das Auto war heute sehr stark. Es war unglaublich, dort oben auf dem Podium zu stehen. Monza ist definitiv eines der besten, wenn nicht sogar das beste, Podium in der Formel 1. Es ist so eine großartige Atmosphäre, so viel Lärm, so viele Menschen – ich wünschte, jeder könnte das einmal erleben. Wir wissen aber, dass uns noch viel Arbeit bevorsteht. Die anstehenden Rennen werden ein enger Kampf gegen Ferrari.

“Today we were not as quick as the Mercedes, but considering where we started from, we got the best result in the race. It was not ideal, but we are working very hard on what we want to achieve. The next tracks should be ok for us. We know we have to work on ourselves and where. I was happy at being back here with all our supporters, I got a lot of adrenalin from being on that podium. Of course, I wanted to win, but I am confident we are on the right way. It was not a great day for us, but at the same time it was brilliant to feel all the passion. Leading the Championship is not important as much as winning the Championship, it’s where you are at the last race that counts. It is clear where we want to go, what we want to achieve.”

“I’m very, very happy about the result and loved it out there today. It was good fun. Two of my favourite races this year have been starting from the back. Silverstone and this one. Some good overtakes in the race kept me excited and I had some real pace in the end. I could see Seb and the thought of a podium was tempting me, so I was obviously trying to catch him right up to the end. The boys did the quickest pit stop and I also got the fastest lap so that’s very cool. You can almost call it a perfect day. We couldn’t have done much more from where we started. Of course I wanted to be up there on the podium as it looked unreal, but I believe it will come next year. Today has been a really good boost for everyone and we’re looking ahead to Singapore.”

“For the whole race I kept struggling with the balance of the car. It never felt like it should have done. On some laps it was getting better, but most of the time we were lacking the grip and the pace. It was not an easy weekend, we were fighting in all conditions, in the dry and even more in the wet. This is something that we have to fix for these kinds of circuit. I’m disappointed as the result is not what we wanted. For sure if you take the pure layout of the track it’s not an easy one for us, which is unfortunate at our home grand prix. I would be surprised if it’s the same story at the next race, because on paper the race in Singapore should be better for us. Now we have to go there and do our best.”

“I really enjoyed the race and I’m happy with our performance. At the same time I’m a little disappointed because I really wanted to finish on the podium today. But you have to be realistic and we didn’t have the pace to match Mercedes and Ferrari, so I think sixth place was the maximum we could achieve. At one stage we were racing against Raikkonen and I thought we could keep him behind, but he was just too quick. I also had a good battle with Stroll for most of the race and I had to work hard to keep him behind me. With the strong qualifying yesterday and the sixth place today, it’s been a great weekend. I have to say a big thanks to the whole team for all their hard work and for giving me such a competitive car.”

I am very happy with the race and I think it was a good one. I really enjoyed myself. It was a bit of a shame at the start, as we lost position to Ocon, as Hamilton had a bad start and defended, so I had to back off. We were in P3 and then both Ferraris and the Mercedes of Bottas overtook. I then had a big flat spot at the end of the race, so started to lose time to Ocon and then was defending from Felipe. All in all, the race was very positive. I finished in P7, which was what we were expecting.

I think it was definitely a good result for the team. It’s always good to score points with both cars. Today we scored 10 points with both cars. I was happy with the race and with the fights. I just had a little touch at the end with Lance but fortunately nothing happened and we managed to finish well. I’m happy with the performance and the race. It was a good Sunday for the team.

“First of all, I want to thank my team for the amazing job they did to change the gearbox on my car before the race. It’s been a difficult weekend for us, when you consider the struggles on Friday and how missing out on Q3 yesterday made our race much more difficult. Today the car felt good and I was strong in the first stint, despite some damage picked up at turn two, but things got more difficult after the pit-stop. We had a slow stop and I got stuck in traffic: I think I lost a couple of seconds and that’s what made the difference between us and Williams. We gave everything to get back to them, but we ran out of laps to pass them. Perhaps with two extra laps I would have made it, but that’s racing. Even though I expected a bit more, we still rescued a few points and I am happy with this result.”

“I had a good start, immediately I was between the Sauber cars and then under braking I chose quite a good line, then out of turn two I got another position and it was all looking good. On lap three I had a touch with Massa and punctured my tyre so my race was really over. I had to pit for tyres and change the front wing which meant swapping to a two-stop strategy. I tried to catch up and the car was working pretty well, so we cannot complain about that. At least we finished the race and at the end of the day I think it wasn’t too bad to end up back in a point-scoring position after what happened at the start.”

“Stuff happened in the race today, but it didn’t affect me because both Red Bulls got in front anyway. We were just not quick enough this weekend. P11 is probably the best result we could’ve scored. It’s still annoying when you’re running in the points the whole race and then you get done at the end. Max (Verstappen) was a lot faster than me. I didn’t have a great chance of holding onto that point. Nonetheless, there’s no reason not to try. We tried hard the whole race.”

"A bit of a complicated race. Our battle today was with Haas and Renault; nobody else was really in reach here, especially the Mercedes-powered teams. I managed to get past Hulkenberg, but after that I was stuck behind Magnussen for quite a long time... It's really hard to follow other cars! I kept trying to get past him but he had clean air in front of him, so it was not possible... This is all we could do today and it's now time to start thinking about Singapore, a track that suits us better. Once this said, it will still be a difficult fight to end up in the points!".

“Unfortunately we weren’t able to make into the points here today as the race was a bit of a struggle. As we had anticipated, we lost out on top speed, meaning we couldn’t fight with the cars ahead. I was also struggling with the balance, so overall it was a tough race. That said, I don’t think we need to go crazy over today’s performance. We need to look ahead to Singapore and focus on the next Grand Prix.”

"Not where we wanted to finish, but today we struggled simply because we don't have a good package to go racing here in Monza... It's not just about lacking a bit of power but, because of that, we needed to take out a lot of downforce, which meant that in the corners we were very slow and on the straights we were only okay, but not fast enough. We just didn't have the pace to score any points here – it's a shame, because this means that I break a statistic that I liked this year: I can't say that I've finished in the points every time I've finished a race any more. It was always going to be a very tough weekend, but now we move onto Singapore, where we should be more competitive and I look forward to fighting for points again!"

“We just had that damage on the front wing in the first corner and from there our race was massively compromised. We tried a few things and we learned about the car. I don’t think the pace was that bad.”

“Ich habe heute mein Bestes gegeben. Wir wussten, dass es kein einfaches Rennen werden würde. Nichtsdestotrotz haben alle im Team am gesamten Wochenende eine tolle Arbeit geleistet. Nun freue ich mich auf das Nachtrennen in Singapur, das ich besonders gerne mag. Ich hoffe, dass wir dort konkurrenzfähiger sein werden.“

“Our bosses were here today and, unfortunately, we could not deliver a good result. It’s very disappointing to have a double DNF. “I had problems with upshifting from the very early stages of the race, which at some points was costing me a lot of time – almost a second a lap. We tried to fix the issue by changing some settings, but the shifting never worked as it should have, and it hampered my race. “Starting from the back of the grid was never going to be easy here. We made up a few places during the race, but there was little chance we could make it into the points today. “Now we are looking forward to Singapore, which is a more suitable track for us.”

„Es war ein guter Start, aus dem Mittelfeld ins Rennen zu gehen. Ich hatte ein paar schöne Zweikämpfe, doch nach der Anfangsphase konnte ich die Rundenzeiten der Konkurrenten nicht mitgehen. Wir wussten, dass es auf dieser Strecke schwierig für uns werden würde. Am Anfang des Rennens wurde mein Auto beschädigt, wodurch das Fahrverhalten beeinträchtigt wurde. Daher war es kein optimales Rennen für mich. Wir müssen uns nun auf Singapur fokussieren, um dort Fortschritte erzielen zu können.“

“Our strategy was promising and I was quite enjoying working up the order today. It wasn’t going to be our strongest race, but there was potential for a decent finish. Sadly, we had a transmission component failure which led to a precautionary stop. It’s a shame because I think the pace was looking quite strong with the Supersofts in the end.”

“We only knew on the lap that I retired that there was any sign of a problem, as I lost power. It’s a similar issue to yesterday, and it’s a shame because we changed the engine overnight for a brand new one today. To have another problem in a race which was going very well is obviously frustrating. Hopefully it will be better in Singapore. “It’s pretty difficult to draw positives from a weekend like this. From my side, it had actually been a really positive weekend in terms of my driving and the performance I’ve put in – it’s been very strong. The last few races have been very strong for me, in fact. It’s just such a shame to finish with another retirement, and not have any reward for all of that. And we’ve had another issue today, but we have to move on. “I guess it’s possible I’ll have another grid drop in Singapore, although we don’t yet know exactly what the issue was today, despite it looking like a similar problem. We’ll have to wait and see.”