27/04/2019
NEWS STORY
Sergio Perez: "It was a great qualifying, the team did a tremendous job in terms of the strategy. We reacted really well and got all the decisions right - when to go out and when not to go out. It was a long session, the track cooled down a lot but I think we did a good job and we were able to get more out of the car. This is a very unique track, it pushes the driver to the maximum. You need to be on the limit every lap without making any mistakes and that takes a lot of commitment and confidence. It will be a long race, we have some very fast cars around us but anything can happen here in Baku. A single mistake can cost you a lot. It is important to stay cool and I think if we are able to finish the race we should be able to score good points."
Lance Stroll: "It was a challenging day and it's a shame to go out in Q1. I did what I could with the limited running we could do yesterday. FP3 was a good session and I kept building my confidence up, but in the end we didn't have enough laps. I had to abort my first lap due to the yellow flags, so I only had one attempt. In the end, the lap just wasn't good enough so all we can do is look ahead to tomorrow. The potential of the car is good, as Sergio has shown, and the race can be very unpredictable here. If we come up with a good strategy and make the most of any opportunity we can still come up with a good result, so let's see what happens."
Otmar Szafnauer: "It was a very interesting session, especially as the track temperatures dropped the longer the sessions went on. As we were expecting, the midfield is very tight: Lance was very unlucky to miss out on Q2 by such a small margin. On the other hand, Sergio got into a good rhythm early on and did a very good job to maximise the performance of the car in each of the sessions. To end up as the fourth quickest team here is very satisfying, but there are no points on offer on Saturday. Tomorrow is when it matters so we will need to be ready to make the most of the race. Our pace on long runs looked good and we believe we have a good car, so points with both cars is our target."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Baku, here.