Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

It’s been a pretty incredible weekend; it couldn’t have been any better to be honest. We did everything well as a Team, from the strategy through to the pit stops. Heading into the race we all had question marks around the tyres but we were all happy with how they performed compared to our competitors. I felt really comfortable in the car all weekend and we were able to do everything that we had planned. The final pit stop was a risk of course, I think the Team could hear from my voice on the radio that I wanted to pit (laughs). From the outside it might have looked crazy but I knew we could do it, I saw there was a gap and I wanted to make the most of it.

It’s good to be back on the podium. Friday and today we maximised what we have and the upgrades we introduced this weekend worked well. The team has done an excellent job and we will keep pushing in this direction. I also want to thank Carlos as he made my life a bit easier by putting up a great defence against Checo. I was watching on the big screen, it was very exciting!
Now we go to Silverstone which, with Spielberg, is among my favourite circuits. Hopefully we can take advantage of the new upgrades we have on the car again and offer a bit more of a challenge to Red Bull in the next round.

It was a really good race. I think we had the pace this weekend: we showed it in the Sprint and we showed it today. It was a nice comeback and I feel really comfortable with the car, it has been really special. I think we were all racing quite hard and it is always a pleasure to battle with drivers like Carlos. We have had a tricky few races, so it has been nice to get back and have that pace and form. I am still not one hundred per cent physically, however, so now I need to look ahead and recover ahead in time for Silverstone.

A very good day! I was a little bit surprised we had the race pace that we did, and it was great to be fighting the Ferraris and Red Bulls. More importantly, we beat both the Astons and Mercedes, which was our main goal today. Overall, a good day and good points.
It’s one of those tracks which is easy to get punished on. We kept it on track and didn’t really make any big mistakes, with some good racing at times. The team has done a great job again. Thank you to everyone back in the factory for bringing the upgrade because that definitely got us in the points today. A big cheers to them.

I think it was more or less the maximum we could achieve today. We were very close to Lando [Norris] in terms of pace and also the Mercedes. We tried something different by starting on Hards but then the VSC meant our advantage of going longer in the first stint wasn’t possible anymore. This circuit didn’t suit our car last year so maybe there is something for us to look into. Overall, we’ve scored a number of points over the Sprint weekend and we’ve made some ground on second position in the Constructors’ Championship. It’s a long season and we have our home race at Silverstone next week. It’s an incredible track so we will give it our all.

It was a very solid race even though I’m not happy with the final result, as I think we deserved a double podium today. I felt very quick and comfortable with the car but after the first stop the race was compromised as we lost time and positions. I did my best to push hard and recover, with some good overtaking, but unfortunately I received the penalty for track limits.
In the end I tried absolutely everything to defend from Checo but couldn’t hold on to that place on the podium.
There are some things to review, but in general we have to be happy with the progress made and we need to keep pushing in this direction.

It was really challenging today, and our pace was not as we expected. After yesterday, I was hoping for a little bit more from the Grand Prix. I am sure we will go away and get to the bottom of our performance here. We have the same car that we had in Barcelona where we were flying so we need to understand what went wrong on our side. The car certainly doesn’t feel how we want it to at the moment. It’s moving around a lot, and it felt a little bit worse this weekend than at other circuits; the pace was substantially worse though, so we need to get to the bottom of that.

Our performance is clearly circuit dependent now. We were nowhere here but good in Montreal and Barcelona. That bodes well for Silverstone as that is a circuit more similar to Barcelona than Austria, so we’re excited for next weekend’s British Grand Prix. We will be aiming to come back stronger.

It was not the greatest of days today. We weren’t expecting to be as slow as we were and our performance this weekend was a surprise. We don’t have the answer as to why just yet, but this track has highlighted several areas of improvement we need to focus on.

We knew we didn’t have a strong rear-end this weekend, so we took out a lot of front-wing to maintain the balance. I was really struggling into certain corners, particularly Turn 10, and sliding, which I couldn’t do anything about it. That is why I was struggling with track limits. We added some front-wing at both stops and the car began to come back to us, but it was still a challenge.

It was a tough day today, but we still come away from the weekend with some decent points for the team. We slightly mistimed our stop under the VSC this afternoon and lost several places in the pits, and that decision dictated the strategy for the rest of our race. In hindsight, we probably should have pitted during the first lap of the VSC rather than the second, so that’s something we’ll need to review and learn from. I had a few good battles on track while fighting back through the field; taking [Yuki] Tsunoda at Turn Three was especially fun. Our focus now shifts to Silverstone. It’s one of the best tracks on the calendar, so I’m looking forward to getting back out there in a few days’ time.

I think we pretty much extracted the most we could today. While it’s satisfying to be back in the points, it’s not where we want to be as we aim to be much higher than ninth place. We’re lacking some pace compared to our nearest rivals and that showed today. I was pushing a lot and, in the end, we received a five-second penalty for track limits, like other cars again today. It probably doesn’t change the result, and only that we fought with Lance [Stroll] at the end rather than George [Russell] ahead. I’m definitely looking forward to Silverstone and I think we can have a much stronger weekend overall there for the team’s home race.

I’m not disappointed about the race today; I think it’s a normal thing with the top 4 teams and top 8 cars in those positions, so there’s only two points up for grabs. Lando had a great race, as did Pierre, so that was the remaining points and we were the next best. It was a strong weekend for us, our worst result was 13th where we were running P7 for most of it. When you think of it like that, it’s frustrating but it shows we’re making steps forward. Obviously, this track suited us and we were expecting a better result, which is a bit disappointing but still a great race and a good execution. I think we did a good job and with Logan having a great race, it demonstrates our steps forward.

Unfortunately, this weekend we haven’t been as competitive as we wanted, and the top ten ended up being out of our reach. I had a decent start, today, and it seemed like I could’ve moved forward, but then the Safety Car came in just a couple of laps after I had to pit to remove a tear-off from my rear brake duct, and that ended up not helping us. Overall, our pace hasn’t been the same we had showed recently. There is surely some work to do, looking into the next races, and we’re also meant to bring new upgrades in Silverstone next week. Hopefully, they’ll allow us to make a step forward, and improve again our place in the standings.

It’s been tough lately, so it’s great to see the progress we made today. When I don’t qualify well, I leave a lot of work to do on Sunday, so to have a good one under my belt is a nice step forward. Today’s race shows what we can do, and I feel like we’re finally moving forward into the right direction. We have a string of European races which I’m familiar with, so hopefully this is the start of something good for us. We’re heading to my favourite track next weekend but it’s also a difficult one with lots of high-speed corners, which is something I need to focus on. Thanks again to the team for all the hard work in bringing the upgrades to my car and we’ll now look forward to the next race.

It’s not been an easy race for us today. Of course, it’s always disappointing to miss out on scoring points. We’ll need to sit down and carefully review the race to see where we can improve and ensure we can be more competitive on Sunday next week in Silverstone. We had contact with Yuki [Tsunoda] on the first lap and sustained some damage and then we had the penalty for an unsafe release later on, so it was certainly not our day! We leave Austria knowing we had a decent Saturday with points in the bag but with more work to do to improve on Sundays. Bring on Silverstone next week.

I got some damage on the front wing in a Turn One contact, unfortunately, which made me lose ground on my first stint. That compromised the rest of my race as, with such a tight field, it was pretty much impossible to recover. Overall, we have been lacking pace this weekend, this circuit certain hasn’t suited us as much as in recent races. Nevertheless, we are meant to bring new parts to Silverstone next week, and they are meant to make a difference in our performance. We have seen it with our main competitors, how upgrades have been improving their pace, and hopefully, that will be our case, too, to get back in the fight for the top ten right away.

A long afternoon. I picked up some front wing damage in the middle with three cars kind of having their incident in front of me and I didn’t have anywhere to go, which was unfortunate, and our pace wasn’t great. Anyway, I’m looking forward to the next race. It’s a home race for the team and I’ve got some new parts on my car, which I’m very much looking forward to. We’ll see what we can do next weekend.

I think it was a solid race today. We made some overnight changes to the car to find more performance, which meant we started the race from the pitlane. It certainly played out well for us as the early Virtual Safety Car closed the gap between all the cars. In terms of execution, I think we did a good job and extracted the maximum out of our package, we just lacked pace to fight further towards the top ten. I’ll take the penalty that the stewards gave me, we are just trying to find the limit, but thankfully we made a sufficient gap to not lose any positions. I still have a lot to improve on, and I’m certainly not yet at the level I want to be, but collectively, we are trying to consistently improve.

I had very poor pace. I went into the gravel at high-speed when de Vries pushed me on at Turn 6, and I don’t know if there was damage to the floor, so we’ll have to check that but there was no chance today. We’ll continue to work to improve as fast as we can.

At the start, I was aggressive trying to make up as many positions as possible. It could’ve gone well, but unfortunately, we damaged the car going into turn one and went off-track at turn four. I don’t know if I sustained damage on the floor from this, but afterwards, I didn’t have pace, so it was a super difficult drive. I couldn’t keep the car within the track limits, and I can definitely learn from this in the future, but overall, it was just a challenging race.

We don’t know the full picture, but after the first stop the issue occurred and we lost power and couldn’t continue. It’s not ideal, it makes things more difficult going forward because we have less information, but we have to make the most of what we have. We’re surrounded by quicker cars that are pushing on from behind, forcing us to go at a pace we’re not necessarily able to keep up with. The positive is the two very good qualifying sessions this weekend, and obviously a very good Sprint, so at least we have that.