ALEX ALBON, Position: 8th 1:20.382 (Practice 3 – P8 1:20.827)
“Although I’m still learning what the car needs to be really quick, it felt good before the final run in Q3. I was fighting for P4 or P5 on the grid but then we got the red flag and the lap was compromised. On the second lap it was more of a priority for us to put in a good time but the guys who had already done a lap could afford to be a bit slower. Everyone came out too late because no one wanted to be in front as we all wanted the slip steam and that created a delay. These cars have quite a lot of drag so getting a tow can gain you an extra two or three tenths which you need to get up the field. I was trying to pass the other cars but because everyone was weaving down the straights to keep the tyre temperature up as we were going so slow, it got backed up and it became impossible to overtake. I realised by Turn 4 that it was going to be difficult to make it. When we all knew time was running out everyone suddenly picked up their pace, so we were almost flat out by the end of the lap. We should have taken less risk on the second run, but we were fighting for a top five position. It’s frustrating as getting a good position in qualifying would have made tomorrow’s race a lot easier but I had good pace yesterday so there is everything to fight for.”
MAX VERSTAPPEN, Position: NC (Practice 3 – P2 1:20.326)
“Qualifying didn’t exactly go to plan. I wanted to go out and do one lap to see how competitive we were in Q1, even though we are starting at the back because of the penalty, but out of Turn 2 I felt a loss of power and we chose to abort the lap. I’m not worried about the power unit for tomorrow as we haven’t seen problems in the race before and the upgrade seems to be working well in terms of performance as you could see from our times in FP3. In the dry it will be pretty tough tomorrow as the leaders should be able to pull away quickly in the first few laps and there are a lot of cars that look competitive around here. On a track where there aren’t many corners and the lap times are so similar it is harder to close that gap, but in the wet the differences are normally a bit bigger and then we can definitely move to the front. Rain tomorrow would give us a better chance but even in the dry we have a good race car so it should be fun and I’m aiming for the top five.”
CHRISTIAN HORNER, Team Principal
“Going into qualifying Max was always due to take a penalty so he only attempted one run in Q1 as per the plan, but he experienced a spike in revs on the kerb at Turn 2 which meant he felt a loss of power and as a precaution he aborted the lap. Alex progressed through Q1 without any issue and in Q2 he looked to have reasonable pace in the car. In Q3 Raikkonen spun causing a red flag during Alex’s first run while he was around half a second up on his previous best so he did not record a time. A bit of messing around from many drivers on the out lap of the final run in Q3 held everyone up meaning Alex was unable to record a lap which is frustrating as he had good pace in the car today.”