Driver reaction: Italian GP Qualifying

ESPN rounds up all the reaction from up and down the Monza paddock following qualifying for the 2018 Italian Grand Prix.

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton (3rd): « That was an exciting qualifying session! We’ve improved the car overnight and I’m really happy with where we were today. I’m really proud of my guys for pushing this hard – we’ve squeezed absolutely everything out of the car today. Going into the second run of Q3, I kind of knew that the Ferraris might just be able to pull out some extra bit of time, but I think second place might have been possible today. I lost maybe half a tenth in the last corner and that’s the difference between third and second. We’ve got to fight hard tomorrow. The long run pace of the Ferraris looked quicker than ours, so it’s not going to be easy, that’s for sure. The start will hopefully create an opportunity for us. I’ve got to study hard tonight to figure out a way how I can get in front of at least one of the Ferraris on the first lap. It’s great that Valtteri is right behind me, so we can really apply the pressure on the red cars. »

Valtteri Bottas (4th): « The entire day was pretty difficult for me. We made some set-up changes for FP3; the car was better in the corners afterwards, but we lost performance under braking and it just became very easy to lock up the wheels. Obviously, on this high-speed track you need to be able to trust your brakes; unfortunately, I was never really able to do that. Compared to FP3, the car felt a bit better in qualifying, but still not quite there. I made a mistake going into Turn 1 on the first lap in Q3 and after that it was difficult to really get the corner right in the second run. But this was only qualifying – this weekend is not over, the race is tomorrow and we will try everything to put the Ferraris under pressure and challenge them. We’ll see what we can do strategy-wise and I think the first lap is going to be interesting as we might be able to get a bit of a tow-effect into Turn 1. »

Ferrari

Sebastian Vettel (2nd): « I’m a bit disappointed as I couldn’t get pole today and made some mistakes, so that my lap was not that tidy, but locking out the front row with both cars is a great result for the whole team. For tomorrow I think we will have the right speed to race and hopefully we can have a good start, which is always important, especially here. The race is long, so that anything can happen, but we’ll work hard and do our best. The car is strong, so we should be fine. I am happy for the result, as much for our tifosi and hope to get the same result tomorrow ».

Kimi Raikkonen (1st): « The car has been good all weekend and we knew it would have been a close battle. All three sectors were obviously crucial; so far the difference between the top three had been very small, so it was a question of who would get it right and today it was me! It’s great to be on pole in our home Grand Prix in front of our tifosi. When we are driving we cannot hear them, but we could see them cheering and they gave us a lot of support. As a team we did a very good job, we couldn’t have done any better today. I’m very happy for this result but unfortunately this doesn’t guarantee anything for tomorrow. Half of the job has been done, but tomorrow is the most important day. For sure we have a good car and the best possible starting place. The race is long and many things can happen; we need to do a perfect job and hopefully tomorrow will be another good day ».

Red Bull

Daniel Ricicciardo (15th): « We will be starting on the back or second to back row tomorrow, so we decided that putting more miles on the new engine wasn’t worth risking. If we thought we had the chance of setting a pole time, even with the penalties, then maybe we would have risked finishing Qualifying but the Ferraris and Mercs are too quick. I did one lap to get through Q1 and the new engine seemed to be running pretty well. One lap was fun, I would have loved more but this was always the plan. This morning we weren’t that quick but we made some changes which seemed to work for this afternoon. The lap I did was encouraging and having done that lap I have more confidence going into the race tomorrow, we have a better set-up and it should be fun.

« The car is as slippery as we can make it for the race, unless we took the rear wing off completely, which I guess is illegal, we couldn’t do anymore! We’re as fast in a straight line as we can be at the moment which should serve me well in the race. It’s amazing to see how grippy the circuit is right now. I think because there isn’t much wind and it’s quite cool, even with no downforce on our car, the corner speeds are pretty high which is why the times are so quick. The conditions are really nice to drive in too. I don’t think it matters which tyre we start on tomorrow because the compounds are very similar. We will come through the field, brake late and hopefully finish up with some good points. »

Max Verstappen (5th): « Monza is the most difficult track for us, so fifth was what we expected already before the weekend. It’s quite normal where we are, so it’s not a disappointment, we just tried to do the best Qualifying we could. We can’t really do much more, it’s quite painful how much we lose on the straight, but it is what it is. I noticed a difference with the new engine today, maybe one and a half tenths, it’s a little improvement and at least I’m happy with that but for sure we need much bigger steps to be really competitive. We tried to maximise the result but I am quite far from the guys ahead. I didn’t have a tow in Q3 and even though that wouldn’t have changed the final position, at least it would be a little bit closer. I think the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari is too big to do much tomorrow, but we’ll see what happens. You never know what happens in front of you, you just need to be there. We will have a one-stop strategy, I guess like everyone. I don’t think it really matters what we do, if we stay out long or short, I think we just try to have a clean start and take it from there. »

Force India

Esteban Ocon (8th): « It was a very close session and I was actually hoping for a bit more than P8 because I think P6 was achievable today. Unfortunately I didn’t maximise the slipstream at the right moment on my final run and that cost me some top speed. Hopefully we can make up those positions tomorrow because our car pace is strong and there should be some overtaking opportunities. »

Sergio Perez (16th): « I am very disappointed to go out in Q1. It’s frustrating because we had so much potential to be right behind the top three teams this weekend and instead we are out after just one run. It’s very hard to digest: we thought we were safe but we underestimated how much the track would evolve in just a few minutes. We were only two tenths behind Esteban in P7, but with such a close field the margins are very small and we lost out by just one thousandth of a second.

« We have to admit we made a mistake as a team: the call not to go out was wrong, but I also should have done a better lap during my first run. I lost some time and that left us vulnerable. The plan for tomorrow is to minimise the damage we’ve done today. We’re still going to try to make it back into the top ten and bring home some points. Our car has pace, just like last week, but it’s going to be hard work to get through the field. »

Otmar Szafnauer, team principal and CEO: « We didn’t maximise our performance today. In Q1 we underestimated the track evolution and power of the slipstream, and simply got caught out with Checo. We thought we had done enough to progress to Q2, but missed out in the very final moments. Esteban was able to better demonstrate the speed of the car and progressed comfortably through to Q3. We have a quick car and showed good pace over the long runs yesterday so I think we can be strong in the race and bring home some good points. »

Williams

Lance Stroll (10th): « To digest a good result like that, tonight will feel really good. I will go and give my guys a hug. I was giggling inside my helmet. I don’t think it is just the circuit, as on any track it depends on day to day. Sometimes you get in a rhythm and it just comes all together, and today that is how it went. We were in good shape from Q1 onwards and I just built up to it, put in a good lap in Q2 to get into Q3 and then I did what I could and tenth was my maximum. Tomorrow is going to be a challenging day no doubt, as we are suffering from straightline speed and some of our competitors will be on us tomorrow, but my mindset is always the same and I am going to go for it and give it my all and whatever happens, happens. »

Sergey Sirotkin (12th): « It wasn’t the best session for me personally. The performance we had yesterday was a lot more promising than today. It’s been all about slipstreams and how you get them, which car you’re behind and how much of a gap you leave to them in front. I think when you concentrate so much on this it can affect the car balance and how it’s performing at different parts of the track. I think we lost a bit of the base performance and honestly, I think we lost a lot more time. In my last run, the slipstream I got wasn’t optimal. It was a pure time loss in some areas and I was getting a different corner balance, so the car was here, there and everywhere. It was a tough session and I’m not too happy. »

Paddy Lowe, chief technical officer: « It has been a good day. It’s the first qualifying this year that we’ve got into Q3 so congratulations to the whole team for getting the car into good shape for this particular circuit, and especially to Lance. A terrific lap in Q2 got him into Q3. Both drivers did a fantastic job overall. This is one of the trickier sessions in the year for qualifying because track position is so important for the slipstream and there’s a lot of games going on out on track to optimise that. Both drivers did a superb job and drove great laps to get the times when they needed to. We’re now in good positions for the race with tenth and 12th and we look forward to seeing what we can do with that tomorrow. »

Renault

Nico Hulkenberg (14th): « We knew that the penalties were coming so we didn’t do much running in Q2. The starting position gives some flexibility for tyre choice and how you run the compounds, but we need to be realistic – it’s not going to be easy. The midfield was extremely tight today and overtaking, while not impossible here, is also not straightforward. I just want to have a clean race tomorrow and try to make up as many places as we can. »

Carlos Sainz (7th): « That’s a more than good enough birthday present! I’m very happy with that. We changed the rear wing before qualifying so we went into the session a little bit in the unknown. We had good pace straight away, playing a bit with the slipstream to get the most from the higher downforce rear wing. I felt much more comfortable in the car today and the strategy in Q3 was perfect. We’ve turned it upside down since Spa to find more performance, so today is a pleasing end result. The team have worked really hard and we’re in a good position to fight for points tomorrow. »

Toro Rosso

Brendon Hartley (18th): « It was an incredibly tight Qualifying session today, my last lap wasn’t too bad, I made a bit of a mistake in Turn 1 but the rest of the lap was clean. We could have used a bit of rain this afternoon as we saw yesterday we were quite competitive in the wet. The car didn’t feel too bad and the team’s done a good job to tune the car to something Pierre and I both like. The midfield was incredibly close today which is amazing for F1, but frustrating for me to be on the wrong side of that. There was around one-tenth of a second between Pierre and I, and that made the difference of six positions. It’s a bit disappointing to be 18th because it gives us more work to do tomorrow, but after a couple of penalties we should start higher on the grid. »

Pierre Gasly (9th): « Today was unbelievable, we didn’t know if we would get through to Q2 before Qualifying, and then we made it to Q3! It’s an amazing feeling to be starting in P9, everything went super well during Qualifying, I managed to get a good gap and slipstream and put one of my best laps in for the season. I think this was clearly the best result we could have achieved in Qualifying, and it’s fantastic to have done it at Toro Rosso’s home race. I didn’t feel so great with the car yesterday, but we made some good progress overnight and now I feel much better with it. Today was half of the job done and now we need to finish the other half tomorrow. It’s a really long way from the grid to Turn 1 so it will be crucial to really nail the start, then after that just try to be at the right place at the right time because it’s going to be tight. When you start further up the grid it’s a bit less risky, so I’ll try to put my car in the right place to keep it clean, then push as much as possible. »

Jonathan Eddolls, chief race engineer: « We had an afternoon of mixed emotions. Pierre had a fantastic Qualifying session to qualify in P9 at another track where we thought it would be difficult for our car. Unfortunately, Brendon just missed out on Q2 by half a tenth. Q1 was extremely difficult as everyone knows the importance of the tow, so drivers bunched up as no one wanted to lead the queue. Pierre managed to get a good lap together at the end of the session to make it through. Q2 was another extremely tight session and difficult with the tow, but we got it right for the run that counted and Pierre made it through by only 0.002s. Q3 was a very good lap and we extracted the absolute maximum from our package.

« The changes we made to the cars from yesterday to today worked well, our straight line speed is competitive and the drivers were much happier with the balance. Race pace during the Friday long runs was reasonable, so we’re remaining optimistic for the race. It was also great to hear the cheers from the Tifosi on the pit wall after today’s Qualifying results. Given the weather they endured yesterday, it’s what the fans deserved as they have made the atmosphere electric! »

Haas

Romain Grosjean (6th): « It was good. It was a bit on the limit in Q1. It didn’t quite work – the margin to get through wasn’t as big as we wanted, but then Q2 was pretty good. Q3 was nice, everyone improved, but I knew it was going to be super tight. I thought we’d have a bit more margin at the end. I was surprised to see the Renault so fast, and I expected the Force India to be up there. I’m very happy to be starting P6 and, of course, there’s some work to be done for tomorrow, but I think we’ve got a good race pace, as well. There’s a super tight midfield battle going on and we love it. »

Kevin Magnussen (11th): We absolutely should’ve been in Q3 today. We clearly had the pace in the car. It’s Monza, and everything’s about slipstreaming and track position. I did my best lap in Q2 with absolutely no slipstream. I was the first car to get on track, therefore I was all by myself, and the lap I had was one hundredth of a second from getting me into Q3. So, if that was on my first attempt, I’m sure there was more in it. Unfortunately, on my last run in Q2 I was overtaken by Alonso, and I couldn’t then get a lap on that second set of tires, which was crucial. It’s disappointing, but we’ll still have a good race and aim to score points again. »

Guenther Steiner, team boss: « It was probably our most intense qualifying session of the year. We almost missed out to get into Q2. Just one thousandths made it happen. Then we had the incident in Q2 between Kevin and Alonso. There was a little bit of emotion from everybody because there was no need for it. It was an unnecessary situation that Kevin got dropped out by two thousandths. It was a few thousandths up and down and then he was out, but it all came good again when Romain qualified sixth and did most of it in the last sector. So, we start sixth and 11th, which is not perfect, because I think we could’ve been sixth and seventh. Anyway, we’ll look to get as many points as we can tomorrow and close the gap to Renault. »

McLaren

Fernando Alonso (13th): « After yesterday’s poor performance we were expecting a tough Q1, but the team made a lot of changes overnight and the car was faster today. Starting tomorrow in P13 is a good surprise, and unthinkable a couple of hours ago. I’m a bit worried tomorrow we might come back to reality and struggle in the race, but let’s see how it goes. We start in a position close to the points, so with a good start and a good strategy anything could happen.

« At the end of Q2, we had a strange situation. We were a few cars together on the out-lap, trying to find the gap between each other and trying to prepare the tyres. At the very last moment, on the inside of the Parabolica, Kevin [Magnussen] decided to overtake me and fill the gap between my car and the car in front of me. In Parabolica you normally launch the out-lap and start accelerating, but we arrived together into Turn One and we both lost the lap. It doesn’t change much for me, because I think the position I am in is what I deserve, but definitely for him it’s a shame because he could be in Q3, looking at his team-mate’s position. »

Stoffel Vandoorne (20th): « It was extremely close in Q1 today and we saw 10 cars within almost two tenths. We maybe didn’t extract the maximum out of the slipstream we were trying to play. The possibility was there to progress to Q2, so it’s a shame to miss out by a few hundredths. On the other hand, we looked very far away from even thinking about that yesterday. We were on the back foot and quite far away even from the nearest competitor, so today was a step forward.

« We made some drastic changes compared to yesterday and they definitely look like they’ve gone in the right direction. The feeling in the car is still more or less the same, but we gained a little bit of straight-line performance. We’ve definitely progressed a little bit today. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow. There’s still a lot of work ahead of us and we’re not where we need to be, so we’re expecting a tough race. Overtaking around here has never been that easy. The race is going to be long and there’s not really much we can do with strategy as it’s an easy one-stop race.

« There are a couple of guys who have penalties and are out of position, and to score points we always know we need to be a little bit lucky or for something to happen, so I hope the race will be full of action. »

Gil de Ferran, sporting director: « Overall it was a positive day for us and we feel that overnight we improved our competitiveness. Obviously, the ultimate lap-time was highly dependent on track position, and in the end it was a shame that we didn’t get a clean run in Q2 with Fernando.

« Regardless, we’re starting in a decent place that hopefully will put us in a position to fight hard for some points tomorrow. Even though this is qualifying day and more excitement is still to come, the atmosphere here in Monza is absolutely electric and I can’t wait until tomorrow. »

Sauber

Marcus Ericsson (19th): « First of all, it is good to be back in the car after the crash I had yesterday. Our mechanics worked all night and did a great job to repair the car in time. FP3 was all about getting comfortable again, and I felt good in qualifying. Unfortunately, the result was not what we wanted – with both cars out in Q1. We will analyse what happened and work on making improvements for the race. The result doesn’t change much for me, as we have received a grid penalty for changing my engine. Nevertheless, it is really tight in the midfield, so I hope that we can still fight from there and have a good result tomorrow. »

Charles Leclerc (17th): « I am not sure what happened to our performance between FP3, where we were very competitive, and qualifying. I am very happy with my lap – which is something I rarely say – so that makes it even more frustrating to be out in Q1. We have lots of work ahead of us, and have to understand exactly what happened so that we can recover before the race tomorrow and get a good result. »

Pirelli

Mario Isola, head of car racing: « After a very interrupted day yesterday, today was a bit more normal, although the teams are still missing quite a lot of representative dry running data, which should make predicting the optimal race strategy tomorrow a bit harder. Nonetheless, we would expect a one-stopper if conditions remain dry, based on the supersoft and soft. This could still change if the track conditions turn out to be very different from what we have seen so far. With the field seemingly very closely matched, and the tyres able to deliver optimal performance in a wide variety of conditions, we should see a hard-fought and rapid race tomorrow at a circuit well-known for its pure speed. Congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari for setting the record lap today. »

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