27/07/2019
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen: "The front row of the grid is a good achievement for us and Honda on this track. It's been a good day and we definitely found a bit more performance overnight. This morning I was quite happy with the car and also in Q1. I had a little issue in Q2 with a mode setting and it was a shame not to qualify on the medium tyre but once we changed a setting in the pits everything was fine. Of course, we have to take into account that Ferrari had a problem with both cars and they would also have been fighting for pole, but you have to be there when it counts and we maximized everything to be on the front row. I'm on a different race strategy to Mercedes which is not exactly what we planned but we are in the fight and we will see how much difference the softer tyre makes at the start. We're close and we have a good shot tomorrow as we have a good race car. At the moment we cannot judge how the weather will be but we will give it everything and a bit of rain could spice things up."
Pierre Gasly: "It was a good qualifying and I managed to do some decent laps so I'm happy with P4. The mechanics had a really long night and it's never nice to see them working flat out to repair the car, so it's great to qualify on the second row and thank them in this way. Yesterday, I was pushing and just went over the limit. These things happen but it was good to recover today and tomorrow should be exciting with the chance of rain. There are still some areas for me to improve and things I could have done better, but things are coming together and I'm happy. Now we need to focus on tomorrow and the race where my aim is to move forwards. The weather forecast looks very unpredictable but I'm from the North of France where it rains a lot so I'm used to this. Looking at Max's race pace, we should be pretty good tomorrow but anything can happen as we saw with last year's race. Clearly, the Team is pushing massively, we have had good development and it was a big boost with Max's race win in Austria. I think in terms of development, things are going really well, we're still a bit behind, but we're closing in on those in front."
Christian Horner: "That was a strong qualifying for both our drivers and to line up on the front row with Max in P2 and Pierre in P4 marks Honda's best starting position since San Marino in 2006. In Q2, we had a slight issue with Max which was quickly rectified, but it meant he needed to change tyres so both drivers will start tomorrow's race on the softer compound. It was good to see Pierre make a strong recovery after yesterday's incident and fourth is his best Formula One qualifying result to date. With unpredictable weather on the way it is shaping up to be another really exciting race tomorrow."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Hockenheim, here.