Spain: Qualifications Seen from the Pits

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton – Pole Position

Nico Rosberg – 2nd

Toto Wolff, Executive Director: « Barcelona is a circuit where a good lap time is linked to the overall quality of your car – and particularly effective aerodynamic downforce. This makes today’s result very satisfying and all credit goes to everyone in the team who worked so hard to make this happen. It has been a close fight between our two drivers this weekend so far, with performance fluctuations on each side, and Lewis finished on top this afternoon. This is one of the keys at the moment: we have two drivers competing against each other which is crucial to achieving this kind of team performance. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo – 3rd

Sebastian Vettel – 10th [15th on the grid]

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « Certainly, I think that today Daniel got the most out of the car and put in a very solid qualifying to finish 3rd, and on the second row of the grid. It’s really unfortunate that we don’t have Sebastian as well, due to a gearbox problem that we need to fully understand, so we’ll bring the car back and see whether it’s a software issue or a mechanical fault that caused the failure. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Williams

Valtteri Bottas – 4th

Felipe Massa – 9th

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance: « I’m happy because the session went well. The car’s pace was excellent. It’s a hot circuit that demands a lot of downforce, and the new updates brought here have really helped in that regard. The parts brought worked very well. Felipe qualified further back than he could have because he was very fast in Q1 and Q2 but didn’t have a great last lap. There’s a lot of work to do for tomorrow, but we are positive and will look to score some points. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Lotus

Romain Grosjean – 5th

Pastor Maldonado – No time [21st on the grid]

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: « Fifth on the grid is a good place for tomorrow’s race and it’s thanks to the great work of Romain, the team, and everyone at Enstone. It wasn’t the easiest for Romain to extract pace from the car here, but we can see everything is coming together. We saw the potential during practice this morning when he finished fifth [and] maintaining this pace during qualifying itself highlights the progress made. It was a real shame for Pastor not to be able to set a time in qualifying given the strong pace he showed all weekend. His work will be hindered in the race, but we’ll do everything we can to help him climb back up. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Ferrari

Kimi Räikkönen – 6th

Fernando Alonso – 7th

Pat Fry, Chassis Director: Qualification was difficult for everyone today. The track conditions didn’t improve much since yesterday and it was very challenging to get a clean lap. We continued to work on the balance of both cars as we tried to increase grip, but it wasn’t enough to achieve better grid positions for Fernando and Kimi.

As always in Barcelona, it will be important to have a good understanding of tire degradation, because this circuit presents a real challenge for both types of compounds in terms of performance and durability.

Overall, we have taken some small steps forward to improve the stability of the F14-T, both in braking and in corner entry, as well as in power delivery, to give the drivers more confidence in the car. But there is still a lot of work to be done to improve the car’s efficiency, especially in terms of aerodynamics.

– Read the drivers’ statements

McLaren

Jenson Button – 8th

**Kevin Magnussen** – 15th [14th on the grid]

Éric Boullier, Race Director: « Although eighth place is never satisfactory, Jenson drove very well to achieve this position on the grid today.

Kevin was extremely unlucky to see his qualifying relay cut short by a power unit problem, the cause of which we are still investigating. Before that, both yesterday and today, he had the same pace as Jenson, so I’m sure he could have made it to Q3 this afternoon, just like Jenson did.

That said, strategy will play a very important role in tomorrow’s race, and you can be sure that Jenson and Kevin will fight tooth and nail to score as many points as possible in the World Championship.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Force India

Nico Hülkenberg – 11th [10th on the grid]

Sergio Pérez – 12th [11th on the grid]

Vijay Mallya, Team Principal: Starting the Spanish Grand Prix from the 11th and 12th positions is a good effort at a track that has always been a challenge for us. Both our drivers have been looking for a good balance during the practice sessions and struggled to optimize the car. A place in Q3 was not too far off, and starting from the 6th row means we can fight for points. We expect to have a race pace similar to many of the cars around us, and making the right strategic decisions will be critical in the race tomorrow to make progress.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Toro Rosso

Daniil Kvyat – 13th [12th on the grid]

Jean-Eric Vergne – 16th [22nd on the grid]

Ricardo Penteado, Track Support Manager of Renault F1: « We knew that coming into qualifying would be difficult. Daniil’s pace was good enough for the top 10, but he couldn’t achieve it in Q2. With JEV’s penalty, the team decided not to run to save tires for the race. It will be a long one, but we will push for points. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Sauber

Esteban Gutierrez – 14th [13th on the grid]

Adrian Sutil – 17th [16th on the grid]

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « Thanks to the new developments on the car here, we have managed to reduce the gap to the midfield. However, it was clear to us that this would not be reflected in our positions on the grid. Nevertheless, the team in Hinwil deserves praise for delivering this development package on time for this race. Of course, we will still have some adjustments to make, which we will be able to do during the tests scheduled here in Barcelona next week. I expect us to be even more competitive in the race than we have been so far. We must be ready to seize all the opportunities that come our way. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Marussia

Max Chilton – 18th [17th on the grid]

Jules Bianchi – 19th [18th on the grid]

John Booth, Team Director: « It is good to have ended the day with new positive signs from the updates brought to the car this weekend, however, we are somewhat disappointed not to have yet shown their full potential. FP3 was a difficult session, with neither of our drivers able to complete their medium stints, Max due to an off in the gravel at turn 5 and Jules due to a puncture detected on his out lap on mediums.

In qualifying, we had few elements on the performance of the car with the mediums, so we returned to the settings we had during FP2. The red flag obviously impacted our initial plan with a slightly longer first stint, costing Jules a warm-up and in-lap on his set of mediums. Jules was making good progress on his second lap, and unfortunately, he went wide at turn 10. It’s really a shame because his lap could have seen us significantly close the gap with the Saubers.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Caterham

Marcus Ericsson – 20th [19th on the grid]

Kamui Kobayashi – 21st [20th on the grid]

Cedrik Staudohar, Renault F1 Track Support Manager: « There isn’t much to say about the performance today. We extracted the maximum from the power unit with the program and optimal settings in FP3 and qualifying, but the positions are what they are. Some drivers are starting out of position tomorrow, so our goal is to be reliable and ready to capitalize on what might happen in the race. »

– Read the drivers’ statements