Drivers React After Qualifying | 2023 Japanese Grand Prix

The whole weekend has been really enjoyable, a lot of fun to drive and it gave me a lot of confidence to push, especially I think in the first sector it's been really nice to drive, especially in qualifying. I think everyone is having a lot of dig around here, the tyres are wearing a lot because of all the fast corners, but I think also tomorrow it's important to have a good start because if we have a good start we can do our own race I think. Happy, yeah. I think the last lap could have been a bit better, but it wouldn't have been enough to change my position, so I'm happy with P2, definitely feel like I've made good progress through the weekend, I feel like as a team we've made good progress as well, I think we definitely found some pace overnight, so yeah, very happy. No, I'm very happy for the whole team, a P2 and a P3 is a pretty mega result for us, of course I would have loved to have been P2, but Oskar did a very good job today and yeah, my laps were good, I'm just losing a little bit in the straights comparing to the people around me, so maybe a couple of things to look into, but otherwise I'm happy, the team have done a very good job and we're in a good position for tomorrow. It honestly felt quite good in the car, but unfortunately this weekend we don't really have the performance to do better, so I did honestly the best lap of the weekend in Q3, so I put everything together, but it wasn't enough. Max and Checo are much closer on the high fuel, so I expect Checo to come back, the McLarens, they are very similar to us in terms of race pace, so if we don't overtake them at the start, it's going to be difficult to pass them on track. We did struggle through the weekend, we kind of were always two steps behind and we just couldn't get the interestability I was looking to get over a single lap, but come race day I think we are looking a lot better and I think that tomorrow is going to be such a degradation tyre battle that hopefully tomorrow we can still be able to do what we want to. We've been trying a lot of things, trying to put the car a bit more on a sweet spot for this kind of track, but in the end probably we ended up getting a bit lost and having to come back to a more basic setup and having been comfortable all weekend, having to try so many things and probably I was a bit on the back foot going into Qualy, but it's what it is, I think it's not like a better lap or a better Qualy would have given us much more performance or many good positions because I think the car this weekend is there between fourth and sixth. Yesterday was horrendous, but made some good changes overnight and the car was feeling really good today, so I was much happier with it, just unfortunately we're just not quick enough, we've just got to keep working away, we're a long way away on rear downforce, so that's why we're so slow in the first sector, but the laps felt really good, it's just one second away, it's like crazy, to close that gap for next year, at this point to still be a second down on a track like this is definitely worrying for us as a team. Do you see any cause for optimism in your long run pace from Friday and today? No, I think we're just going to struggle like everybody else with Degg, it's going to be tough tomorrow. A difficult weekend so far, we knew it wasn't going to be our best circuit, we knew McLaren were going to be very, very quick, Red Bull we knew were going to return to their norm, it's always a bit shocking when you see the gap on paper, but everybody has good tracks, difficult tracks, last week was a good track, this week is a tough track, so we'll try and maximise it tomorrow and see what we can do. It's definitely special going through Q3 in the home Grand Prix, this was not easy especially, we struggled in a lot of free practices, definitely the team did a really good job, very good job for them, the car was great, so looking forward to tomorrow. What do you think is achievable tomorrow, you've got the upgrade package which you've probably managed to dial in a little bit more, so what are your hopes for tomorrow? I think to be honest I've never driven with a new package in Singapore, but what Liam performed in Singapore looks nice, so I don't have much to worry about tomorrow, just have to enjoy tomorrow and share the moment with the fans and hopefully we can score points. Just into Q3 today again, so we're struggling a little bit at the moment in terms of pace, track to track it keeps changing and we knew on paper that maybe Japan was not the best, as Qatar maybe is not the best on paper, but we keep going into the top 10 and let's see tomorrow if we can still score good points. With the information we had after practice we weren't expecting to be I think super strong, we weren't really sure if we were going to make it out of Q1 to be honest, so we went quite aggressive with tyres and then in Q2 I only had one set, so I think that hurt us a bit in the end, but to be honest I wasn't super confident before quali, so I think we made the right call and with the information we had now it's about making the most of tomorrow's race. I think there was some positive definitely, we had very tricky practice, tested a lot of things and didn't have a great feeling with the car and then we put everything together for quali, got the best out of the package we got at the minute and P12 unfortunately the last weekends we've always been there, I think that's where we are, we're just lacking and missing that extra performance to get back to Q3, but we know it's a position we can fight for the points tomorrow. It's been a tough weekend, we've been really struggling with the heat, the energy this track puts into the tyres with this tarmac as well, it's so rough around here. We've been on the back foot all weekend, so to come out P13 I think honestly coming into this weekend I expected to be a bit further up, but considering how Friday went it's a good achievement, I was happy with my lap and as you said it was small margins, a bit of here, a bit of there would have made the difference, but let's see tomorrow, massive day as well, it's going to be a long race for sure. It's a shame obviously to be that far off the points starting tomorrow, but we have a different tyre allocation to some others, saving a bit more hard tyres, so we'll see where that leads us in the race, if we can make good calls with that and hopefully gain some places on track tomorrow. Happy that I feel we got the best out of it, of course P15 for us, we want to be better than that, but we knew coming into this weekend it was going to be one of the worst tracks for us, we know our car is stronger in qualifying than it is in the race, so being P15 of course you know what's coming tomorrow most likely, but I feel at least I've made some improvements in terms of how I drive this car and I feel like I'm getting more out of it, so at least that work has paid off and I can be pleased with that. I don't know really what happened, I had a good clean lap apart from the small traffic on the sector, but still should have been enough to get through, but we lost some pace relative to the others today and I don't really know the reasons at the moment why, so we need to have a look. It was kind of a good lap, but just not really that quick, so I think we're struggling this weekend. Do you think there's one lap pace and perhaps your race pace will be improved? Maybe a bit, I hope so, we'll see what we can do tomorrow. I don't know, first lap obviously got deleted for track limits, but anyway the second lap felt very good in sector one, but then sector two I tried to find time, but instead I lost some and yeah, weird sensation, no mistakes or anywhere, no hiccups, so I need to look into what happened and why we couldn't find more time. The car was feeling quite good and unfortunately on the most matters flying lap, firstly had a Mercedes exit of the night, I don't think he blocked me, but he stayed on the exit, so I just lost the air, bottomed out on the kerbs and the lap was kind of already on the edge for not making it into Q2 and then yeah, I think Lawson just stayed there in front of me for the whole chicane, so yeah, a very messy one, get blocked twice in a lap, so yeah. Lost the rear on the exit of the last corner and just the grass creeps up on you quickly there as it sort of comes back towards you, but tough one. In Formula One there's always lots of eyeballs, always lots of pressure, how do you reset going into tomorrow, what will tonight be like for you? Just put it behind me, I think, you know, what can you do, it's over, it's over with. I feel like it's been a pretty good day till that point, I feel like I've been pretty quick, was pretty much where I needed to be, just another, you know, small mistake, hugely costly.