21/09/2024
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen: "I am very happy with second today and it is great to start the race on the front row tomorrow.
"Huge credit goes to the Team for all of their hard work; they came up with some great solutions and made a lot of changes to the car overnight and it made a huge difference. The car was a lot nicer to drive, we could attack the corners a bit more and we really maximised our performance today. I had a better feeling with the car and kept on improving it as yesterday was very tough. On paper, this is not a good track on the calendar for us, and we do have our limitations on the pace, so this gives us a lot of hope in the coming races that we can do well. To come out and finish where we did today is an amazing result for qualifying."
Sergio Perez: "It was a very tricky session, Q1 was very nice, the progression that we had with the tyres and the car, and everything was going in the right direction. The track was ramping up but Q2 all of a sudden it became quite difficult to nail the lap, I only found a tenth and we were struggling, mainly with the tyres and something was going on with the brakes for me. If anything, we went slower, we were lacking a lot of grip through the lap and not getting it in the right window. How we are using the tyres has been quite a difficult thing this weekend up to now, so we have plenty of understanding to do. We have come from quite a strong weekend in Baku and then we seem to struggle quite a lot here. Unfortunately, we are out in Q2, it hasn't been a straightforward weekend, I think we lost some potential from yesterday, so we have plenty of stuff to analyse. Overtaking around here is very tricky, we have a long night ahead of us tomorrow."
Christian Horner: "To be on the front row is a great recovery after where we were yesterday. Max has done a great job today, along with the whole team of mechanics and engineers both at track and back in Milton Keynes, and I think it shows that we're going in the right direction. It wasn't perfect, but Max really dug deep, and even the lap with the red flag would've been good enough for the front row so it's positive to know that the pace is real. The most important thing is that we're next to our closest rival on the front row when it counts. It was tough for Checo, Q1 was looking okay, and in Q2 he had a moment in the last chicane and with how close the margins are here it just wasn't enough unfortunately for Q3. Congrats to Lando on pole, he's been very strong this weekend so far, but anything can happen tomorrow and hopefully we have a good race on our hands."
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