12/05/2018
NEWS STORY
Sergey Sirotkin qualified 18th and Lance Stroll 19th for the Spanish Grand Prix. Both Sergey and Lance qualified on the supersoft Pirelli tyre. After completing initial runs, both drivers returned to the track with less than five minutes remaining, and Sergey improved by half a second to go P18. Lance improved and set personal best times in sectors one and two, before losing control of the car and finding the barriers.
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: We didn't expect to be strong today after our performance yesterday, but we have actually made some progress overnight, even though that doesn't move us up the grid order. Our two drivers did a great job with the material they had to work with today. Unfortunately for Lance, he lost the car and caused some damage which we'll need to fix this evening. We've not done a good enough job and we need to come back in a better position. We're working very hard back at the factory on the problems that we understand, but this is yet to be translated to the track. There's a lot more to come as the upgrades we've brought here were never meant as a solution for our underlying problems.
Sergey Sirotkin: It's been a tough weekend. We know it's not the best track for us, and it doesn't hide our weaknesses, but it's definitely more difficult than we expected. Missing FP1 made it more complicated for me and our three-place grid penalty doesn't help, but it won't make a big difference for us. We have been doing quite a good job to recover the situation since Bahrain, and we have made some improvements. Today is not our day, nor is it our weekend, but I don't want to be too negative. I don't want to break the positive trend in the team just because of one weekend. It's tough but what can we do. Believe me, everyone is working and applying the maximum pressure. It is how it is, we are going flat out to improve things.
Lance Stroll: I was on a much better lap, but I just lost it going for every little bit right at the end. I am not going to beat myself up when I know this is realistically where we are today. I was on an okay lap but nothing to get out of Q1, which was expected all weekend. We saw an improvement in Baku, but this weekend we are right back to where we were. I think it is something we just need to keep chipping away at, so hopefully we will get there sooner rather than later. The circuit here for sure doesn't suit our car.