22/05/2021
NEWS STORY
Sebastian Vettel: "On a track like this, you need confidence, and I think qualifying eighth is a good sign that we are making progress with this car. Already on Thursday, I had a good feeling with the car in practice, and today was just about building on that feeling and progressing in each session. In Q1, it was very tight because we only ran one set of Softs because I wanted to make sure we had a second set for Q3. It worked, but then we were not able to use them [due to Charles Leclerc's crash], which was a shame. However, we can be happy about getting the car into Q3, which means we are starting inside the points already and, here in Monaco, that is crucial because it is so hard to overtake."
Lance Stroll: "It was a tricky session. I did not quite have the balance in the car and I was not able to string a lap together. On my best lap, I lost some time in traffic behind [Lando] Norris, too, so that did not help either. Qualifying is very important here, so it is not an ideal result, but we will see what we can do tomorrow. If we make a good start, perhaps we can make some progress. Sebastian was able to get the car into Q3, which I think shows that we are in the mix for points when we put everything together."
Otmar Szafnauer, CEO & Team Principal: "Sebastian finished an incident-packed qualifying session in a strong eighth position, having looked in good form here both today and on Thursday. His career record here at Monaco is sensational, in fact: two wins and five additional podiums so far. Lance progressed smoothly through Q1 into Q2, quicker than Sebastian in the initial stages of quali in fact. In Q2 he encountered some excess oversteer, which is not what you need on the ultra-tight confines of this notoriously tricky street circuit, and on his quick lap, he was also slowed by Lando [Norris]. Consequently, he ended up 13th, which was a pretty decent result in the circumstances. Overtaking is very difficult here, but we are still hopeful of a double points finish in tomorrow's race."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Monaco, here.