Saturday: Massa beats Alonso for the first time this year

Felipe Massa – 4th

Usually, our rivals find something extra for qualifying, and we take a step forward in the race: we will see tomorrow if this unwritten rule will be confirmed on the track. I hope I will have a competitive car like I did in the last part of qualifying. Even this morning, I had too much oversteer, and then, with a few changes, that was no longer the case: we made an adjustment to the front wing, and the car’s handling was much better. It’s difficult to predict how many stops there will be: 4 is not impossible, 3 absolutely probable. It will depend on the length of the first stint: that’s when everything is decided for the next stops. What does it mean for me to be ahead of my teammate for the first time this year? I’m happy, but what matters is being ahead of everyone, and I hope we will soon have qualifying sessions where we are the best. Here, I don’t think I could have gone under the 1:20 mark: McLaren and Red Bull are very strong and will always be tomorrow. My only regret is starting on the dirty side of the track: I know how penalizing that can be on this track.

Fernando Alonso – 5th

« It’s the same result as last week, so once again today, we are neither surprised nor disappointed. It’s true that I didn’t do a perfect lap in Q3, and I’m happy to admit it, but I don’t think I could have been on the front row. Third place was within our reach, and it would have been a good position to start the race, but others did better than us, just like my teammate who put in a good lap: it’s important that both our cars are in positions to fight for the podium. In any case, better 5th than 4th place, which means I’ll start on the cleaner side of the track. It seems that once in Q3, Red Bull has a magic button that allows them to go faster, but apparently, the button switches to OFF during the race! It’s always very difficult to overtake here, and I don’t think DRS will change much: perhaps a good slipstream and a gust of wind will be more effective. We are going to try to gain a few places tomorrow; we need to maintain a good pace, a perfect job in the pit stops, of which I think there will be many, maybe 3 or 4, because tire degradation is quite high. It will also be important to have the right timing for the stops. Anything can still happen; it’s going to be a very open race. »

Stefano Domenicali

« When you see one of your cars at the top of the timesheets in Q1 and Q2, you clearly start to believe that you can have the pole, but you know it will be very, very difficult to achieve: Hamilton has been very strong all weekend and Red Bull always has something in reserve for Q3. We didn’t manage to do the perfect lap with our 2 drivers, and the logical conclusion is that we end up with the same results as in Germany a week ago. We always have a bit more race pace than in qualifying, but here too, overtaking will be very complicated. Historically, the start is very important on this track, as is tire behavior. It’s going to be an unpredictable race, like almost all of them this year. The one who does the best job with their team will win. »