Lando Norris (McLaren – first in sprint race qualifying): “I’m extremely happy. It was complicated. I had never experienced such a complicated session. Our pace was already good on the dry track. We had to attack in SQ3, take risks, get the tires up to temperature, it was difficult. But I still had a lot of fun. I’m happy with this pole even if it’s not a “real” qualification. For the race, it will depend on the weather because the risk of rain always exists. We worked during FP1 to see our pace. Some will go faster in the race but this pole shows that we did a good job. »
Esteban Ocon (Alpine – 17th), speaking to Canal+: “I think we didn’t maximize the potential of the car. With only one free practice session, we were not able to optimize the car’s settings. We’re lucky enough to be able to change a lot of things, and I already have a few ideas in mind. I think there’s a little more performance to be had, we’ll see that on Saturday. The Sprint will be a practice session in traffic, awaiting qualification for Sunday’s race. »
Pierre Gasly (Alpine – 16th), speaking to Canal+: “It was a very good session. We knew that this weekend would be complicated, I don’t have the new chassis and the new flat bottom like Esteban, so we are trying to limit the damage and that’s what we did in this session. We were very close to Q2, and that’s positive since it wasn’t easy during free practice. Since the start of the season, we have always had some problems in qualifying or in the race, but not this time. I’m happy with the performance we were able to extract from the car. You have to look at the length, there are 24 races. From next weekend I will have new parts, they seem to be doing what we expected, the car is lighter. We should get closer to the top 10.”
