29/04/2017
NEWS STORY
Carlos Sainz: "Yesterday we were totally out of position, but today we managed to pick-up the pace a bit and to qualify in P11, which isn't that bad. It's just unfortunate that I have that 3-place grid penalty for tomorrow… We are definitely lacking some pace around this circuit, but it can be an interesting race. I'm really enjoying this midfield battle which is making every Quali and race very exciting. I'd say points are possible and, even if it will be tough to go forward, I will give it my all and let's see where we end up."
Daniil Kvyat: "After this morning's FP3, I'm happy with my result in today's qualifying session. The car has been difficult to drive all weekend and we also had a few issues this morning which we couldn't completely solve for qualifying. But I drove well and I'm happy with my lap. Tomorrow we will try our best to fight for points!"
James Key (Technical Director): "So far it hasn't been the easiest of weekends for us. We've had similar problems to most of the other teams, trying to find the right grip level for shorter runs. Unfortunately, we fell victim to a little bit of that this afternoon. We ran quite conservatively on Friday, so we knew that there were certain things that could be addressed immediately for FP3; but we also made quite a lot of changes to our set-up today and this began to give us a more reasonable balance and a slightly better approach to try and optimise the tyres a bit, this seemed to work this morning and we made some reasonable steps for FP3. In qualifying we ran into trouble during Q2 with our final tyre sets and neither driver felt they had the grip they should have had – and perhaps they had in earlier runs - and this left us in a bit of a compromised situation without either car in Q3. Ultimately, I think it's very tight but we've also lost a bit of ground in the last few races and we need to make that up in the next events. Sadly, Carlos has got his grid penalty to take from Bahrain, so he won't be starting from P11. We have a few challenges for tomorrow, but of course you have to approach it with a good plan and we'll do everything we can to try and squeeze the cars into the top ten."