10/09/2022
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen: "I think qualifying went well. The Ferraris have looked strong all weekend, so we knew it would be close today.
"We set up the car for the race, opting for a little bit more downforce; over one qualifying lap it wasn't the best, but I think tomorrow it will be strong. Regardless, we were still quite close so that's a positive. It will be an interesting battle tomorrow; I'll try and stay out of trouble and just make my way forward. We won't be taking any crazy risks though, I know that we don't need to win every race from now until the end of the season but if I clear all the cars in front of me, then I will of course go for the win."
Sergio Perez: "It is still a good result today and we can fight for it tomorrow. With the race pace we have, we can close up the gap, so I am looking forward to it. It wasn't a great lap for me, but it didn't feel bad either, now we need to maximise for tomorrow and focus. We knew the Ferraris were going to be very fast around here so their result wasn't much of a surprise. I think in the race they will also be strong. We are lacking a bit of pace at the moment so there are a few things to review from today before the race - we have to make the most of what I have. The DRS straights can be very painful around here, you can sit for a couple of laps and that can impact your race a lot. It will be difficult to pass, you must have a good strategy and use your pace properly, that will be very important to progress."
Christian Horner: "We knew in qualifying Ferrari would be particularly strong and that proved to be the case. We had to compromise qualifying slightly to give the drivers a better race car tomorrow, so we'll see if that trade pays off. I think it's still tricky to overtake here, Spa for sure is the easiest to overtake, but theoretically we should be able to get into an overtaking position although it's certainly not going to be straight forward.
We've strategically taken the penalties at the best race we can considering where we are in the season as we didn't want to do it at Singapore or Japan given the difficulty in overtaking. We have a strong race car though, so hopefully we can make some good progress tomorrow. A mixed up grid could mean a very exciting race tomorrow, we've taken two sets of new softs - so have Ferrari and it will be fascinating to see how that plays out."