14/09/2024
NEWS STORY
George Russell will line up P5 with Lewis Hamilton P7 for Sunday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix. George topped the times in FP3, albeit by setting his best lap at the end of the session when the track was at its best.
Heading into Qualifying, the team knew that it would likely need to find more pace to be in the fight for pole. Both drivers navigated their way through to Q3, and initially sat P4 and P7 after their first efforts.
Opting to run first on track for their final laps, both were forced into a slower out lap as the stationery Williams of Alex Albon sat at pit exit. Albon got going before both drivers started their lap, but both sacrificed a little tyre temperature by easing up in the final sector. Both George and Lewis did ultimately improve on their final efforts but could only manage P5 and P7 on the grid for tomorrow's race.
George Russell: I was pretty happy with my laps in Qualifying. They all felt strong but unfortunately, we didn't quite have the pace to fight for pole position. We topped the times in FP3, but we knew that this flattered us a little bit, having run right at the very end of the session. We thought we would be in a battle just outside of the top three. It is therefore a little frustrating to be half-a-tenth from P3 but P5 isn't a bad place to start from.
Ferrari are typically quick at street circuits and that proved to be the case once again today. I don't think we will be able to race them for victory tomorrow but hopefully we are in the battle for the podium.
Lewis Hamilton: Qualifying was disappointing as we had a good day yesterday and I thought we could be in the fight for the front two rows. Unfortunately, I was struggling to get the tyres working and that is what it is all about. We will analyse why that was as a team and hopefully make improvements moving forward.
The aim is to move forward tomorrow, and I am staying positive that we can do so. It is not always easy to progress here, but we have a slightly different tyre strategy to others which may help us. We will also have to look after the tyres as it is easy to suffer with the rears. If we can do so, then hopefully we can have a better day than we had today.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO: Qualifying proved frustrating today. Ferrari have looked strong all weekend, so we knew that it was unlikely we would be fighting for pole position. We worked hard to make improvements overnight and, although we were flattered by FP3, looked to be able to battle for the second row. After our first runs in Q3 that seemed possible. Unfortunately, on our second efforts we had a slightly compromised out lap and missed out on P3 by just half-a-tenth of a second.
George was happier throughout the session and ended up P5. Lewis struggled with tyre temperature and finished P7. It leaves us with work to do tomorrow but it is a long race, and our aim is to move forward. We haven't got a clear idea of where we are compared to our competitors on the long run so we will see what we can do tomorrow.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: We made some overnight changes with the aim of getting the car into a better place, not only for qualifying today but tomorrow's race too. The outcome this weekend will ultimately be dictated by long run pace, so it was important that we continued to work on protecting the rear tyres for Sunday.
After a disrupted Friday, George was happier with the overall balance in FP3, but Lewis felt less comfortable than he did the day before. Whilst George topped the times in that session, we knew we were unlikely to be challenging for pole position. After making it through the first two segments of qualifying, we looked like we may challenge for the second row. Unfortunately, the out laps on our second run were slower than we would have liked and that cost us some crucial tyre temperature on those final efforts. That may have cost George a couple of places and we found ourselves in the middle of a tight bunch, rather than at the front.
Without much long run data from Friday, everyone's relative pace is slightly unknown. We hope the changes we've made to the car since then will help us tomorrow and we can fight for the podium.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Baku here.