We made some good set up changes going into qualifying and the car was a lot better. I think we really maximised that and the car felt more connected and nice to drive. We were strong into the high speed and I felt really comfortable there and the high speed corners were really quick. We have had a clean weekend and have been fine tuning the car throughout the week. During the practice session I felt like we were not the quickest out there but qualifying felt really good. McLaren were quick the whole weekend and we have been a little bit behind them, so we need to look at what we can do to optimise the performance tomorrow and be more competitive. Looking to tomorrow, I think it will be very tight; it will be about how we approach the tyres, especially with the high degradation. It will be a close and exciting race tomorrow. We need to analyse a few things but qualifying has been good so we can aim to fight for the win. 

I am not happy with my position today, the target was to be higher up. It was a tricky qualifying, we struggled initially and we burned through the tyres quickly unfortunately, which meant we weren’t able to extract the maximum out of it. My final lap wasn’t as clean as it needed to be in Q3, I didn’t have enough of a rhythm or a pace. We needed more of a progression through the session and we didn’t have that, we will work hard to have that for the race. We have made some good changes so we should be on the right track for Sunday. It will be a difficult race from P11 with the grid penalty and it will be very important to be patient and get the right opportunities, especially if it’s wet because anything can happen. We have to be ready to be out there when it matters. Hopefully we are able to secure some good points and take them away from our rivals.

We’ve been struggling with pace this weekend and tried multiple things to try and improve, and in the end, I felt better in qualifying than in Free Practice. At least I’m happy with my lap and feel like I was able to maximise the current package. The last races have been going well and even if it’s a shame, I think it’s important that we’re facing this more difficult moment together as a team. It’s a good opportunity to learn from our struggles and grow as a team. The most important thing is to remain positive, and we certainly will. 

It’s a tricky weekend. We have a lot of new parts on the car, and we still need to understand the best way to make them work. After yesterday, when we were still finding a bit of balance, we made pretty big changes overnight and today in qualifying the car felt much more together. We made progress in terms of feeling and balance, but unfortunately, we’re still in a tough spot in terms of the stopwatch. Being out of Q1 with both cars, especially using three sets of soft each, shows that at the moment, we don’t have the pace. There’s still more to find and we’ll keep chipping away. Tomorrow is going to come around quick, but we have a few races ahead of us with similar track characteristics, so we obviously need to figure out together the things we’re missing.