News
23rd August 2014, 17:40
Sebastian Vettel on why a pre-qualifying downpour actually played into his and Red Bull's favour; Toto Wolff on why Mercedes fear their rivals will close back up in the dry; and Nico Hulkenberg on how driver errors and a strategy gamble backfired in qualifying. The drivers and senior team personnel report back after a frantic, rain-hit Saturday at Spa-Francorchamps...
Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo (5th, Q3 - 2:07.911)
"I had a moment on Blanchimont; that corner is tricky in the wet. It's never full, it's always a lift or a dab of the brakes and knowing that the chequered flag was just there at the end of the session, then I just pushed it a bit too much. I guess in hindsight it cost a bit of time, but you never get the perfect lap in these conditions. Spa is unique, as the track is so long and some parts of the circuits are drier than others, so nearly every lap you're driving blind. It's great to drive here though."
Sebastian Vettel (3rd, Q3 - 2:07.717)
"Yesterday was a different story to today. Today we did a lot more laps and I think the rain helped us, in dry conditions we couldn't have qualified so high up. So, it was a good day for us and a good result and we should be a little bit more competitive compared to Mercedes in the race tomorrow, so let's see."
Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
"A great recovery by Seb after a difficult Friday and very little mileage to get third on the gird and with Daniel, despite running wide on his final flying lap, he managed to qualify fifth in a very low down force configuration in very tricky conditions. So, a tremendous job by both drivers and good grid positions for tomorrow's race. Hopefully we'll have a more competitive race car than qualifying car."
Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1
"Obviously difficult conditions for this qualifying. The heavy rain appeared straight after FP3, making the management of both cars tricky, particularly at the end of Q2 when the rain increased. Seb was not able to change his tyres, but had the pace to go through to Q3. After that, the plan was to run as much as possible to cope with any unexpected weather conditions. Let's see the race tomorrow with again some unexpected events to come."
Mercedes
Nico Rosberg (1st, Q3 - 2:05.591)
"It's fantastic to start from pole here at Spa. It's never easy here in these conditions, which make the track even more challenging. But today was very stable with intermediate conditions throughout, so not as tough as in previous years. It was a great qualifying performance today and I have to thank the team for their great work. My engineers helped me to find the right setup with all the opportunities to change something during a session. The car went better and better at the end, so I'm very happy and also a bit surprised that the gap was so big to the other teams. Having said that, I hope to have a good start and a clear race tomorrow because, like we have seen in Budapest, Sunday is the day that counts. But I'm quite confident as we have a fantastic car. I'm looking forward to the race."
Lewis Hamilton (2nd, Q3 - 2:05.819)
"I was a bit nervous going into qualifying - wondering if everything would come together after the troubles I've had during recent weekends. But it's great to see that all the hard work the team has put in is paying off. This circuit is a big challenge in the wet. It's probably more fun in the dry, when you're right on the edge of performance, but the conditions were pretty stable so it wasn't too bad. This is a circuit where you need confidence on the brakes but unfortunately, on my Q3 run, I had a glazed front left brake which made the car pull to the side. When it does that, it's really hard to recover and get the temperature into the brake, so it meant I kept losing a bit of braking power on my final laps. I'm not too disappointed, though. Last year I was on pole, then Seb came flying past me down the Kemmel Straight, so I think P2 could be the best place to be. It may just be a blessing in disguise with the grid slot."
Toto Wolff, head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
"Sometimes in these wet conditions, you just hit the sweet spot with both the car set-up and the tyres - and that's definitely what happened for us today, with a car that was the class of the field on the intermediates. But you then need two fantastic drivers to deliver and it's very encouraging to see both cars on the front row for the first time since Canada. However, the performance gaps we saw today were not normal and we are taking nothing for granted. Our rivals will be dangerous in the race if it's dry, and we will be working hard tonight to make sure we find the right strategy for both drivers to fight for the win tomorrow."
Paddy Lowe, Mercedes team executive director (technical)
"We never like to see rain ahead of qualifying because it always means lots of stress - and this was our fifth wet qualifying session in 12 races so far this year! But on the other hand the conditions were pretty kind, as it was consistent intermediate tyre weather throughout which saved us any difficult decisions on which tyres to use. We are also pleased to see that the car enjoyed a significant pace advantage in the conditions, which made life easier - and set things up for a fantastic competition for pole between our two drivers, who had a great battle today. The only issue we saw was brake glazing - in particular on Lewis' car. But overall, we are most happy to have both cars at the front and to have enjoyed a clean qualifying session - which we have not seen for a number of races. Well done to everybody in the team."
Force India
Nico Hulkenberg (18th, Q1 - 2:11.267)
"It was a difficult session in tricky conditions. Initially it was looking good; I was on the pace and we chose to stay out on one set of intermediates for the whole session. Maybe that was a factor in missing out on Q2 because my tyres were quite old and worn by the end of the session. Q2 should still have been possible, but I made mistakes on my last two laps and out-braked myself going into the final corner, went wide and lost time. For the race tomorrow I believe we can recover because we've got a solid car and the long run pace in the dry yesterday looked promising."
Sergio Perez (13th, Q2 - 2:10.084)
"It was not the easiest day for us. I was struggling in the wet conditions and that was the main issue today. I wanted to be further up but we did not maximise everything. I'm feeling more optimistic for tomorrow and we should have strong race pace. P13 is not a bad place to start the race and I'm sure we can move forward and make up some positions."
Robert Fernley, Force India deputy team principal
"It was a wet qualifying session and I think we ended up well short of the positions our pace should have warranted. Conditions were very difficult for everyone and we were unlucky to lose Nico so early. Checo did a good job to reach Q2, but as the track became more and more slippery at the end of the session he was unable to improve his time enough to make it into the top ten. We will have a big job on our hands to get both cars in the points tomorrow, but the indications we have seen yesterday show we have a good race pace. The weather can once again play a big role so we will need to be ready to maximise every opportunity we may get."
Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez (20th, Q1 - 2:13.414)
"It has been an unfortunate weekend so far. It is very disappointing considering all the technical issues. The team is pushing hard to put everything together. Also from my side, I am trying to extract the most out of the car. However, under the current circumstances we are very limited on track time. With the mixed conditions it makes it even more challenging, and it is very difficult to get the most out of what we have. It is an unacceptable situation, and we need to change something to sort out all the technical issues. We have to make sure it does not happen again in the next sessions."
Adrian Sutil (14th, Q2 - 2:10.238)
"Again a wet qualifying in Spa, the same as last year. It was difficult to assess the situation on track, especially trying to work out how much water was still in the corners. Particularly during the rainy sessions, the car is still difficult to drive. Based on the weather forecast for tomorrow's race, we chose a dry car set-up for qualifying which resulted in the balance of the car not being optimal. Under these circumstances we can be happy and it was important to finish qualifying without making mistakes. The team did a good job, and I got the best out of the car. I am satisfied with the outcome of qualifying."
Monisha Kaltenborn, Sauber team principal
"Adrian put in a solid performance and got what we could expect here. We will see tomorrow what this means for the race. Regarding Esteban, it is disappointing that his weekend has so far been dominated by problems with the powertrain. This makes it very difficult for him and his crew to find the optimal set-up for the car, because track time is so limited. No doubt he is in a difficult position for the race."
Giampaolo Dall'Ara , Sauber head of track engineering
"It was a challenging session with difficult weather conditions. However, on the procedural side of things everything went smoothly and the team did a good job. Unfortunately once again we lost a car due to a technical issue with the powertrain. Esteban had to stop out on the track due to a problem with the battery pack. This is frustrating because we are losing valuable time in preparation for the race. Adrian did solid job and is more or less where we can realistically expect to be. Now we have to make the best out of this for the race."
Williams
Valtteri Bottas (6th, Q3 - 2:08.049)
"The final practice where I finished P1 showed that we have a very strong car in the dry, but wet conditions allow other cars to move closer to us and unfortunately we didn't qualify as high today as we can. I lost some tyre temperature in my warm up lap because of traffic which is crucial for us and this made my final run trickier than the ones before, and throughout qualifying we were losing time in the second sector. Our wet pace has improved a lot though since the beginning of the season and P6 is still a good grid slot. We can still do a lot tomorrow and if it is a dry race then we stand a good chance of challenging Ferrari and Red Bull."
Felipe Massa (9th, Q3 - 2:09.178)
"The rain was very tricky today and prevented us from showing our true pace. Our pace looked solid in Q1 and Q2, but I had traffic in Q3 on my warm up lap and because of that I was not able to warm my tyres up properly which stopped me getting the full performance out of the car on my flying lap. Even though the track was drying and getting quicker in Q3, I was slower than my Q2 time so that shows that I could have gone faster if my lap had come together. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully we can show the pace we have and move up the field."
Rob Smedley, Williams head of vehicle performance
"These sort of variable wet conditions are always very tricky and can catch people out. We played it sensibly and managed to get both cars through into the top 10 which is positive and we need to be satisfied with that, with Valtteri only three tenths adrift of third position. We saw on Friday that we have strong long run pace in dry conditions and we expect a largely dry race, so we are confident that both drivers can make up places tomorrow and secure some good points."
Lotus
Romain Grosjean (15th, Q2 - 2:11.087)
"Spa is a circuit where you have to be quite brave even in the dry, so in the wet it's pretty good fun! P15 is quite disappointing. We got through to Q2 but then we were one of the slower of the cars in that session. We knew that the Q1 conditions would suit us a bit better than in Q2 due to the amount of rain on track. We look to the race now and as it's Spa, you never know what can happen. We're on the grid and we'll push as hard as we can for the best result possible."
Pastor Maldonado (17th, Q1
More... (http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2014/8/16245.html)
Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo (5th, Q3 - 2:07.911)
"I had a moment on Blanchimont; that corner is tricky in the wet. It's never full, it's always a lift or a dab of the brakes and knowing that the chequered flag was just there at the end of the session, then I just pushed it a bit too much. I guess in hindsight it cost a bit of time, but you never get the perfect lap in these conditions. Spa is unique, as the track is so long and some parts of the circuits are drier than others, so nearly every lap you're driving blind. It's great to drive here though."
Sebastian Vettel (3rd, Q3 - 2:07.717)
"Yesterday was a different story to today. Today we did a lot more laps and I think the rain helped us, in dry conditions we couldn't have qualified so high up. So, it was a good day for us and a good result and we should be a little bit more competitive compared to Mercedes in the race tomorrow, so let's see."
Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
"A great recovery by Seb after a difficult Friday and very little mileage to get third on the gird and with Daniel, despite running wide on his final flying lap, he managed to qualify fifth in a very low down force configuration in very tricky conditions. So, a tremendous job by both drivers and good grid positions for tomorrow's race. Hopefully we'll have a more competitive race car than qualifying car."
Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1
"Obviously difficult conditions for this qualifying. The heavy rain appeared straight after FP3, making the management of both cars tricky, particularly at the end of Q2 when the rain increased. Seb was not able to change his tyres, but had the pace to go through to Q3. After that, the plan was to run as much as possible to cope with any unexpected weather conditions. Let's see the race tomorrow with again some unexpected events to come."
Mercedes
Nico Rosberg (1st, Q3 - 2:05.591)
"It's fantastic to start from pole here at Spa. It's never easy here in these conditions, which make the track even more challenging. But today was very stable with intermediate conditions throughout, so not as tough as in previous years. It was a great qualifying performance today and I have to thank the team for their great work. My engineers helped me to find the right setup with all the opportunities to change something during a session. The car went better and better at the end, so I'm very happy and also a bit surprised that the gap was so big to the other teams. Having said that, I hope to have a good start and a clear race tomorrow because, like we have seen in Budapest, Sunday is the day that counts. But I'm quite confident as we have a fantastic car. I'm looking forward to the race."
Lewis Hamilton (2nd, Q3 - 2:05.819)
"I was a bit nervous going into qualifying - wondering if everything would come together after the troubles I've had during recent weekends. But it's great to see that all the hard work the team has put in is paying off. This circuit is a big challenge in the wet. It's probably more fun in the dry, when you're right on the edge of performance, but the conditions were pretty stable so it wasn't too bad. This is a circuit where you need confidence on the brakes but unfortunately, on my Q3 run, I had a glazed front left brake which made the car pull to the side. When it does that, it's really hard to recover and get the temperature into the brake, so it meant I kept losing a bit of braking power on my final laps. I'm not too disappointed, though. Last year I was on pole, then Seb came flying past me down the Kemmel Straight, so I think P2 could be the best place to be. It may just be a blessing in disguise with the grid slot."
Toto Wolff, head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
"Sometimes in these wet conditions, you just hit the sweet spot with both the car set-up and the tyres - and that's definitely what happened for us today, with a car that was the class of the field on the intermediates. But you then need two fantastic drivers to deliver and it's very encouraging to see both cars on the front row for the first time since Canada. However, the performance gaps we saw today were not normal and we are taking nothing for granted. Our rivals will be dangerous in the race if it's dry, and we will be working hard tonight to make sure we find the right strategy for both drivers to fight for the win tomorrow."
Paddy Lowe, Mercedes team executive director (technical)
"We never like to see rain ahead of qualifying because it always means lots of stress - and this was our fifth wet qualifying session in 12 races so far this year! But on the other hand the conditions were pretty kind, as it was consistent intermediate tyre weather throughout which saved us any difficult decisions on which tyres to use. We are also pleased to see that the car enjoyed a significant pace advantage in the conditions, which made life easier - and set things up for a fantastic competition for pole between our two drivers, who had a great battle today. The only issue we saw was brake glazing - in particular on Lewis' car. But overall, we are most happy to have both cars at the front and to have enjoyed a clean qualifying session - which we have not seen for a number of races. Well done to everybody in the team."
Force India
Nico Hulkenberg (18th, Q1 - 2:11.267)
"It was a difficult session in tricky conditions. Initially it was looking good; I was on the pace and we chose to stay out on one set of intermediates for the whole session. Maybe that was a factor in missing out on Q2 because my tyres were quite old and worn by the end of the session. Q2 should still have been possible, but I made mistakes on my last two laps and out-braked myself going into the final corner, went wide and lost time. For the race tomorrow I believe we can recover because we've got a solid car and the long run pace in the dry yesterday looked promising."
Sergio Perez (13th, Q2 - 2:10.084)
"It was not the easiest day for us. I was struggling in the wet conditions and that was the main issue today. I wanted to be further up but we did not maximise everything. I'm feeling more optimistic for tomorrow and we should have strong race pace. P13 is not a bad place to start the race and I'm sure we can move forward and make up some positions."
Robert Fernley, Force India deputy team principal
"It was a wet qualifying session and I think we ended up well short of the positions our pace should have warranted. Conditions were very difficult for everyone and we were unlucky to lose Nico so early. Checo did a good job to reach Q2, but as the track became more and more slippery at the end of the session he was unable to improve his time enough to make it into the top ten. We will have a big job on our hands to get both cars in the points tomorrow, but the indications we have seen yesterday show we have a good race pace. The weather can once again play a big role so we will need to be ready to maximise every opportunity we may get."
Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez (20th, Q1 - 2:13.414)
"It has been an unfortunate weekend so far. It is very disappointing considering all the technical issues. The team is pushing hard to put everything together. Also from my side, I am trying to extract the most out of the car. However, under the current circumstances we are very limited on track time. With the mixed conditions it makes it even more challenging, and it is very difficult to get the most out of what we have. It is an unacceptable situation, and we need to change something to sort out all the technical issues. We have to make sure it does not happen again in the next sessions."
Adrian Sutil (14th, Q2 - 2:10.238)
"Again a wet qualifying in Spa, the same as last year. It was difficult to assess the situation on track, especially trying to work out how much water was still in the corners. Particularly during the rainy sessions, the car is still difficult to drive. Based on the weather forecast for tomorrow's race, we chose a dry car set-up for qualifying which resulted in the balance of the car not being optimal. Under these circumstances we can be happy and it was important to finish qualifying without making mistakes. The team did a good job, and I got the best out of the car. I am satisfied with the outcome of qualifying."
Monisha Kaltenborn, Sauber team principal
"Adrian put in a solid performance and got what we could expect here. We will see tomorrow what this means for the race. Regarding Esteban, it is disappointing that his weekend has so far been dominated by problems with the powertrain. This makes it very difficult for him and his crew to find the optimal set-up for the car, because track time is so limited. No doubt he is in a difficult position for the race."
Giampaolo Dall'Ara , Sauber head of track engineering
"It was a challenging session with difficult weather conditions. However, on the procedural side of things everything went smoothly and the team did a good job. Unfortunately once again we lost a car due to a technical issue with the powertrain. Esteban had to stop out on the track due to a problem with the battery pack. This is frustrating because we are losing valuable time in preparation for the race. Adrian did solid job and is more or less where we can realistically expect to be. Now we have to make the best out of this for the race."
Williams
Valtteri Bottas (6th, Q3 - 2:08.049)
"The final practice where I finished P1 showed that we have a very strong car in the dry, but wet conditions allow other cars to move closer to us and unfortunately we didn't qualify as high today as we can. I lost some tyre temperature in my warm up lap because of traffic which is crucial for us and this made my final run trickier than the ones before, and throughout qualifying we were losing time in the second sector. Our wet pace has improved a lot though since the beginning of the season and P6 is still a good grid slot. We can still do a lot tomorrow and if it is a dry race then we stand a good chance of challenging Ferrari and Red Bull."
Felipe Massa (9th, Q3 - 2:09.178)
"The rain was very tricky today and prevented us from showing our true pace. Our pace looked solid in Q1 and Q2, but I had traffic in Q3 on my warm up lap and because of that I was not able to warm my tyres up properly which stopped me getting the full performance out of the car on my flying lap. Even though the track was drying and getting quicker in Q3, I was slower than my Q2 time so that shows that I could have gone faster if my lap had come together. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully we can show the pace we have and move up the field."
Rob Smedley, Williams head of vehicle performance
"These sort of variable wet conditions are always very tricky and can catch people out. We played it sensibly and managed to get both cars through into the top 10 which is positive and we need to be satisfied with that, with Valtteri only three tenths adrift of third position. We saw on Friday that we have strong long run pace in dry conditions and we expect a largely dry race, so we are confident that both drivers can make up places tomorrow and secure some good points."
Lotus
Romain Grosjean (15th, Q2 - 2:11.087)
"Spa is a circuit where you have to be quite brave even in the dry, so in the wet it's pretty good fun! P15 is quite disappointing. We got through to Q2 but then we were one of the slower of the cars in that session. We knew that the Q1 conditions would suit us a bit better than in Q2 due to the amount of rain on track. We look to the race now and as it's Spa, you never know what can happen. We're on the grid and we'll push as hard as we can for the best result possible."
Pastor Maldonado (17th, Q1
More... (http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2014/8/16245.html)