Drivers React After Eventful Sprint Qualifying | 2024 Miami Grand Prix

The practice felt really nice, I felt like the car was in a really good window, but then somehow in qualifying it didn't feel like that anymore and I was really not happy. In Q2 it was just a terrible lap, I had no grip. And then I went into Q3 with the soft tyre and I only saw that I was going two tenths faster than what I had on my dash. And also the lap itself, I was just sliding around, no grip. And then they told me we were P1, I said it must be a joke, so yeah, I mean we take it, but feeling-wise today wasn't particularly great, but we'll have a look why that was. Straight away I felt the feeling and the hard work that I've done earlier in the season to try and put the tyres in the right window have paid off. So I'm happy because there are so many talks now and you are as good as your last race in this sport and obviously when you have two races in a row where you are bad in qualifying, which I haven't done a great job, people start to talk, so it's good to stop that, but now I obviously need to work in the consistency and try to stay at that level and put those tyres consistently in the right window as I've done in the past. Given that it's only a single shot on that soft tyre, it's down to a bit of luck on what it's going to do, the car in the soft, there is no progression. I think we got caught up with it a little bit and yeah, fortunately that wasn't ideal. So we got some work to do there, hopefully tomorrow we can sort it out and the most important is in these days to get the points, maximum points tomorrow in the sprint and then focus for the race. I feel obviously really good about it. I think it was just a good session, actually the Q1 run 1, the first lap I actually made a mistake so we were putting ourselves under a bit of pressure, but found a good lap and then Q2, I think we just built up from there. So I think all of us, I was speaking to Max just now, he said he was quite surprised to be P1 with his lap and I was saying with mine I was surprised to be P4, because the soft I expected a bit more from it but it didn't really give that much more than the medium. So I think we were expecting everyone to go a lot quicker and they didn't, so happy with the second row, it's awesome. Touched the wall both laps as well so I think I told the team I was definitely trying to get everything out of it. I don't know if that made me quicker or not but we were going for it and I had some good comfort in the car. We had a strange change of behaviour from the car from FP1 to SQ, we were struggling quite a lot with the grip, just struggling to put the laps together and sectors together. So yes something that we need to look into because definitely I struggled through the whole quali, when we put the soft I was on a bit of a good lap there but I still made another mistake in 17 and lost the lap. So yeah not happy obviously but still we can turn it around tomorrow for quali. I think it was just a really really tricky session for everybody. I don't know if the track changed a little bit or if we all just thought the soft was going to be a lot better but yeah my lap felt pretty terrible and it was P6 so I think everyone must have just had a bad run. I think Lando did the quickest lap of the whole qualifying on a medium in SQ2 so yeah a bit strange but I'll take P6. Yeah it was a good qualifying for sure, I'm going to use the tyre to save a set for tomorrow's qualifying and hopefully we can try and pick something up in the sprint race. It was difficult for sure to read the grip on track and as you said changing the tyre compound from the medium to the soft at the end, it was difficult but same for everybody, I think we put both cars in Q3 which was the target and let's see tomorrow. I just pushed too hard, simple as that, so no car was feeling very good, yeah just silly to be honest so a couple of mistakes in turn one and just a big spiral from there so yep, a shame because the team have done a good job, the upgrades are working so I'm happy with everything, just not with one thing. This morning I actually didn't feel good at all in the car but sometimes it takes a moment to get your eye in and we managed I think to clean up the setup a little bit for this afternoon but yeah tricky obviously as we know a sprint with little practice but I think we were a little bit lucky in SQ1, I was just on the verge to get out and it wasn't very clean from my side so it was a lucky escape and then Q2 was very clean, well executed and SQ3 we ran only a used set to keep the gun fully loaded for tomorrow and Sunday but yeah it was tight, it was one tenth to I think one of the essence to P7 and it's a shame I feel like I had that in me but nevertheless still a good day. In practice the soft tyre was feeling really good on our car but pace was good, I think it was P4 and just on the medium just couldn't get the sweet spot and as you say I found myself on the wrong side of it so it was tight out there, we shouldn't have been in a position to be that close to the margin to the cut off and yeah we need to work overnight and make some improvements for the main quality. The car felt really good in P1 and then P2, I mean it didn't feel terrible it was just seven tenths off, I mean that's just I think the pace of our car I think. I was 105% out of the car today, we really pushed hard on that second lap so we got the tyres in a too hot window let's say on that second lap so I was a little bit down on the lap time on that second lap but couldn't hold it, we just pushed the car too hard. So there's a few things that we can fix but honestly I was very happy with the first lap, how the grip behaved and the way it increased through the first lap but yeah it's obviously disappointing to be out for half a tenth but we're just behind the Merc and that's small encouraging signs, I think it's probably one of my strongest quali laps of the year so happy to take that and we'll see if we can move forward tomorrow and more importantly do a good quali as well. Just messed it up, I had great pace in SQ1 but I wasn't able to do a good lap in SQ2, I messed it up in Turn 7, brake too late, didn't make the apex and the lap was gone, the previous lap before that I just had traffic so I didn't get that lap either as a banker so yeah I just messed it up but the pace in the car is good and it looked like we had a top 5 in there so I'm pretty bummed. SQ1 was good so car was there, just didn't able to maximise it I think, well we tried the first push but it didn't work out, also probably I didn't able to put it all together as well but at the same time I think the second two pushes was better for us so yeah that's the main issue and that's it. It was a strong first lap and second lap, unfortunately I lost the car in Turn 5 and 6 and the lap was marginally improved but the lap was poor so not ideal, it's a shame because all the other laps I think were going to put us in Q2 but unfortunately didn't manage to do it when it mattered. Unfortunately we struggled a little bit already this morning, we tried to change quite a bit of the car and then still we fixed a few issues but then we have other problems with the car balance so struggling with the grip at the moment and we're going to have a look more into details later on but it's difficult really to find that extra few attempts just to get into SQ2. We made quite big changes for the sprint quali from the practice in terms of the balance but the car felt very different I have to say and felt like there was a bit of a track reset as well so sliding around quite a bit and it was a bit of a traffic paradise, I had the moment with the McLaren, I had to go off the track and I never felt the tyres recovering then. We were actually really quick in that session, a lot of potential, just a huge snap in Sector 1 was the end of it, unfortunately in the sprint qualis you only get one set. We struggled a bit in the sprint qualis I think, just on the harder compounds, we changed quite a lot between P1 and quali and most probably just overdid it so we took a gamble that didn't work.