Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying – Team and Driver Reaction
It’s been an exciting weekend so far – a fire in practices and Hamilton showing his strength again, here’s a roundup from most of the teams including driver reactions after the Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying session today.
Mercedes – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying – Team and Driver Reaction
It’s a front row lock-out for the Mercedes team in Malaysia, here’s what both drivers had to say after the qualifying session.
Lewis Hamilton – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P1 – 1:32.850
“It feels great. I’m incredibly grateful for the car being where it is and the guys have really done a great job for us to have such performance this weekend.”
“To be able to extract it from the car is the thing I’m really happy about – it’s been night and day in comparison to Singapore that’s for sure.”
“Here I’ve had lots of mileage, I’ve been able to build through the sessions and I’ve just felt really comfortable in the car! Again, great work from the guys in the garage – just like they’ve been doing all year.”
“I’ve had incredible support ever since I arrived here in malaysia, the people here and from everywhere else around the world too – as always. I want this just as badly as they do so hopefully, tomorrow we’ll see it.”
Nico Rosberg – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P2 – 1:33.264
“Congrats to Lewis for the pole, he did a better job today. I was closer to him on my last lap but then I lost a couple of tenths in the last corner which was a pity.”
“I can be happy with a front row start as we have seen this year that there are some opportunities at the start and qualifying is not quite so important anymore – especially at a track like this where you can overtake.”
“Overall, I’m quite confident for tomorrow, I hope we can give our Malaysian friends from Petronas and the whole country a great race.”
Toto Wolff – Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport – Malaysian Grand prix Qualifying
“That was a pretty awesome session from Lewis, setting the fastest time in all three parts of qualifying and taking pole by a big margin and this was without completing his final effort.”
“He’s been on point from the first lap this weekend and without any reliability problems, he’s got the job done.”
“Nico also did a great recovery in Q3, he got a strong P2 on his final lap and he probably left a couple of tenths out there on track as well.”
“So, looking ahead to tomorrow, we need to focus on the job, it will be a challenging race with our main rivals very close on the long run pace.”
“We’ve hit our first target for the weekend but the big one is still to come.”
Sauber F1 – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying – Team and Driver Reaction
Marcus Ericsson – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P17 – 1:35.816
“After a positive Friday, today has also been a decent day. The overnight rain made the trek conditions with the new asphalt feel different that in FP3 so it was a little bit tricky to get a good read of it.”
“We made some changes and managed to go into qualifying with a good feeling – I had a clean lap and made no mistakes so overall, I am satisfied with my performance.”
“Obviously the result doesn’t show that but we were close to Q2. Let’s see what we can achieve in the race.”
Felipe Nasr – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P18 – 1:35.949
“The result from qualifying is obviously not where we want to be – on my last try in Q1 my front tyres were not in the ideal working window to start the lap with.”
‘This certainly affected sector 1. Besides that, it was a clean lap but still not enough to reach Q2 which is the goal.”
“One positive is that the long run in FP3 felt quite consistent and tomorrow we will fight back!”
Red Bull Racing – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying – Team and Driver Reaction
A wonderful qualifying session for the Red Bull team with Verstappen placing his car in P3 for the Malaysian Grand Prix tomorrow.
Max Verstappen – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P3 – 1:33.420
“I thought it was going to be a tough race for use before we came here. Now it seems like the balance of the car is here, the long runs seem good and we have definitely improved the car on short pace too.”
‘We were very close to the Mercedes who are out on front-row and I’m really enjoying the new surface here too, the car seems to be working very well on it.”
“For the both of us to be on the second row, in front of the Ferrari’s mean we can be very pleased with today’s work.”
“After Singapore, I had a talk with the team and we changed some things on the car and it all seems to be working so hopefully we can keep improving in this way. The setup here feels great and no doubt everything will be checked tonight to make sure we are in the best position possible for the race tomorrow.”
Daniel Ricciardo – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P4 – 1:33.467
“It was quite an exciting qualifying session and my lap was pretty clean, I pushed quite a bit in the first two sectors and think I got more out of the tyres compared to the last sector where I struggled for traction and lost a little bit of time.”
“From where we were yesterday, I am very happy – we made quite a few changes overnight and they definitely helped me out today, I was feeling a lot more comfortable in the car and our race pace is looking good too.”
“We should have a nice battle for the podium tomorrow and we’ll definitely try to stay ahead of the Ferrai’s.”
‘They are normally pretty good with their tyres but we have an extra set of softs for the race which should work well for us – myself and the team are pumped to lock out the second row at this circuit and we really should have a grew race on our hands for tomorrow.”
Christian Horner – Team Principal – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
“A great performance from both of our drivers in qualifying today, extracting everything possible out of the car to lock-out the second row on the grid.”
“Max absolutely nailed his first run in Q3 and there was very little to choose between the guys today – to be ahead of both of the Ferrari’s and to get as close to the Mercedes is a positive which we will be taking into the race tomorrow.”
Ferrari – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying – Team and Driver Reaction
Sebastian Vettel – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P5 – 1:33.584
“We expected it to be tight but we thought we could have had the upper hand in the end so I’m actually quite disappointed to see both the Red Bulls in front of us – they were just a bit quicker.”
“There was not a lot missing but just enough – just over a tenth. We need to have a look into our data later and see if we can pick it up.”
“We are hoping to be one row higher up, so in second – right behind the Mercedes!”
“For the race tomorrow, we should have good speed and we need to look at the strategy as this will also be important tomorrow. There is a bit of room for manoeuvre as everybody has to use the harder tyre for the race tomorrow which I think should make it interesting – there is also the fact that we are in Malaysia and there might just be some rain or just heat as a factor!”
Kimi Raikkonen – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P6 – 1:33.632
“It was pretty smooth running until the last try then I had some traffic on the out lap which didn’t help and I struggled with the tyres to make them work in the first two corners so I ended up running wide.”
“It was a decent qualifying session but it’s painful when you have such a bad last try.”
“The new tarmac is hard so it’s hard to say where it’s going to go and which tyre will be the best for the race. It will be down to the conditions tomorrow so we will do our best and see what that brings in.”
Force India – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying – Team and Driver Reaction
Sergio Perez – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P7 – 1:34.319
“I’m very happy with our performance. It was very important to execute a perfect qualifying session and I think this is what we did as a team, it was a mega effort by the whole team!”
‘The whole qualifying hour was very intense but you could see how close the lap times were for all the cars and I had to maximise each lap.”
“I made a little mistake in Q2 on my last run which could have cost me the place in Q3 but fortunately I managed to make it through.”
“The result from today means that we are in a strong position to fight for points tomorrow.”
Nico Hulkenberg – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P8 – 1:34.489
“I am quite satisfied with how today went and with my starting position for the race. When the top three teams lock out the first three rows, seventh and eighth is the best which we could have achieved.”
“In the end, my lap was not good enough for P7.”
“It’s going to be really close behind the leaders and still eighth place is a very good position to start tomorrow’s race.”
“I hope that we can keep both the cars in front and take the opportunity if anything happens and our priority is to stay inside the points and maximise what we can get out of this race.”
Robert Fernley – Deputy Team Principal – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
“It’s an extremely satisfying performance today which sets us up nicely for a strong race tomorrow – the team has done a brilliant job of dialling the car into this circuit and both drivers delivered clean laps when it mattered.”
“Locking out the fourth row of the grid is a fair reflection of the speed we have in the car and I’m optimistic that we can race well to bring home some important points tomorrow.”
Williams F1 – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying – Team and Driver Reaction
Felipe Massa – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P10 – 1:34.671
“I think qualifying was going well but for sure we expected to finish higher up. I had the pace in Q2 and it was a big fight for a couple of tenths.”
“Unfortunately we are three places back on where it was possible to be – anyway, the race is tomorrow and I really hope that the strategy, pace and the weather is all in our favour to help our race.”
“We will try everything we can.”
Valtteri Bottas – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P11 – 1:34.577
“That was quite a tricky qualifying session for us. I was actually very happy with the front end of the car – I felt like the balance was better in today’s practice that in qualifying, especially around turn 6, 7 and 8.”
“We do have a free choice of tyres to start tomorrow’s race so our goal is to have both cars ahead of the Force India – I believe that’s possible.”
“We can definitely score some good points from where we’re starting and I’m sure the understeer and the balance of the car will be better for the race tomorrow.”
Rob Smedley – Head of Performance Engineering – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
“Qualifying was a little bit disappointing because I think the car was good enough for 7th and we weren’t able to do that and deliver as a team. That leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.”
“With that say, the team did do a really good job across the whole weekend and we had a little bit of homework to do following the Friday on the low fuel runs.”
“Valterrin didn’t get his lap together in Q2 for various reasons so we didn’t get into Q3 and Felipe’s Q2 lap would have been good enough for 8th in Q3.”
“There was a little bit of track improvement in the final session and everyone else improved but we didn’t. Ultimately, that’s disappointing because we should be further up in the grid than we are however the main thing is that we’re in the mix.”
McLaren – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying – Team and Driver Reaction
Fernando Alonso – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P22 – 1:37.155
“In practice yesterday we were comfortable inside the top 10 – there’s an element of frustration to find ourselves with useful performance but facing a grid penalty ahead of the race.”
‘Hopefully we’ve stockpiled enough components for the remainder of the season that we no longer need to take penalties and start at the back like we are.”
“My running in FP3 this morning was particularly important – our aim was to conduct some long runs and to gain some useful date for the race. In quali we ran just a few laps with the aim to save as many sets of tyres as we could.”
“It’ll be interesting tomorrow to see how well we’re able to read the conditions and play the strategy. The new asphalt keeps improving quickly and while it’ll be difficult to overtake 12 cars and get into the points, I think there’s still something more to come from us tomorrow.”
Jenson Button – Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying
P9 – 1:34.518
“I really enjoyed qualifying! It’s never nice to be just 0.0029s behind the car in front but that wasn’t too bad – we were either going to be eighth or ninth and we ended up in ninth so I’m very happy with that.”
“We’ve improved the car a lot since practices yesterday but the team has also done a great job to improve it – qualifying was the first time this weekend that I felt really comfortable.”
“Hopefully we can show well in the race – there’s no reason as to why we can’t fight the car around us tomorrow.”
Eric Boullier – Racing Director, McLaren – Malaysian Grand Prix Team and Driver Reaction
“Jenson drove superbly in qualifying and extracted the absolute maximum from the car after a difficult and unpromising first day in practice.”
“It’s a testament to the whole team that we managed to transform our fortunes overnight and the cars drivability has been improved between Friday and Saturday.”
“It’s a sign of what’s to come with the McLaren-Honda Partnership.”
“While we knew ahead of the race weekend that Fernando would face a large grid penalty, there’s still an element of frustration in seeing what could have been, nevertheless – we placed all our focus today on the race and while he starts 22nd tomorrow, I’ certain that on track he will be on absolute attack from the second the lights go out.”
More coming soon!
The Formula 1 Girl 🙂
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