Austria: Qualifying Seen from the Pits

Williams

Felipe Massa – Pole position

Valtteri Bottas – 2nd

Rob Smedley, Director of Performance: « I am really delighted. The guys did a great job. It’s only the start of 71 laps, but we’re starting from the best possible position. We have to think a lot to maximize the number of points at the end of the race. It will be hotter tomorrow, but we know where the problems will be on our long stints. So it will be a defensive race as we try to keep everyone behind us. This is a well-deserved result for the team because everyone has worked so hard, at the factory or on the track. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg – 3rd

Lewis Hamilton – 9th

Paddy Lowe, Executive Technical Director: « It was reasonably good for us in Q1 and Q2, even though the Williams looked clearly strong, especially with the super-soft tires. In Q3, Lewis was ahead in his first lap but went off at turn 8, so that lap was canceled, and he was under pressure for his final lap. He locked his wheels at turn 2, and we still don’t clearly know why, so we will analyze the data closely. Nico didn’t have a good first lap, so he pushed hard in his final lap, but he encountered yellow flags and finished 3rd. Congratulations to Williams, it’s the first time they’ve been on the front row with both cars since 2003. We have a lot of work to do to be ahead with both cars, but we’re going to work hard to achieve that. »

– Read the drivers’ declarations

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 4th

Kimi Räikkönen – 8th

Pat Fry, Technical Director in charge of the chassis: « If you look at the qualifying results since the beginning of the year, today is truly not like any other day. That being said, all my congratulations to Felipe, because I think he truly deserved the pole position. Here in Spielberg, your overall engine power counts for a lot, and so starting from the second row must be seen as a good result. It’s very easy to make mistakes here, especially in the first corner as well as the last two, and since it’s a very short track, traffic can also cause you problems. Fernando got the most out of the car, and tomorrow we will be working with him in two directions: attacking the cars in front of us, and defending against pursuers like Hamilton. Unfortunately, Kimi didn’t have a clean lap, due to a mistake in the first corner, and we now need to work on improving his package to give him more confidence in the car because his skills are not in question. The race pace we had on Friday was encouraging, similar to that of Williams and Red Bull, so we can expect a race as close as the qualifying. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo – 5th

Sebastian Vettel – 13th [12th on the grid]

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « I think the 5th position is the maximum we could achieve today with Daniel, who extracted everything he could from the car, in what was a difficult qualifying for us. Sebastian struggled to find pace on a single lap, and it was obviously disappointing that he didn’t make it to Q3. More encouragingly, our race pace seems better, and I hope that if temperatures rise, we can positively attack in front of the Red Bull crowd. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

McLaren

Kevin Magnussen – 6th

Jenson Button – 12th [11th on the grid]

Eric Boullier, Racing Director: Jenson missed Q3 by such a narrow margin (only 0.156 seconds) that we can say with some certainty he could have made it if he hadn’t lost so much track time due to a braking issue in this morning’s FP3. That being said, Kevin did an excellent job throughout the qualifying hour, finishing 6th, just 0.049 seconds behind Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull.

Certainly 6th, even 5th, is not enough for us. McLaren exists only to win, and anything else never fully satisfies us. But we are encouraged by our performance today because it indicates that we are on the right development path. Rome wasn’t built in a day; Woking may take a little longer, but we will get there.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Toro Rosso

Daniil Kvyat – 7th

Jean-Eric Vergne – 15th [14th on the grid]

James Key, Technical Director: This weekend, we arrived with a very large aero pack, and it’s good news that it works quite well, and I think it’s a good foundation to move forward. Today, we are obviously very happy to place Daniil in Q3 and for him to finish seventh, which is a good starting position. But it was a mixed session. I think throughout the day, JEV was not really 100% satisfied with his car. He had some balance issues that we worked a lot on.

In qualifying, the situation seemed a bit better but it’s so tight here, it’s such a short lap that a few tenths make the difference and his last lap in Q2 was not enough to make it to Q3. However, he was satisfied with the car during the long run on Friday so we remain hopeful for tomorrow. For Daniil, it was a fantastic qualifying session and he was competitive all day. Unfortunately, he fell victim to the yellow flag with the Mercedes in Q3, so he had to lift off which probably cost him three or four tenths. I think we could have done even better but with a seventh position on the grid we can’t complain at all. The team is happy for him for doing such a good job. But it’s tomorrow that counts and we look forward to it.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Force India

Nico Hülkenberg – 10th

Sergio Pérez – 11th [16th on the grid]

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Director: It was a very solid afternoon from the team, which puts us in a good position for tomorrow. The progress made last night and this morning resolved many of the balance issues encountered yesterday and we were in good shape for qualifying. Checo was close to reaching Q3, but Nico just made it only for a lap to be invalidated. He will start 10th, but with the race pace we demonstrated yesterday, both cars have every chance of moving up and bringing back some important points.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Lotus

Pastor Maldonado – 14th [13th on the grid]

Romain Grosjean – 16th [15th on the grid]

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: « We expected to struggle today, and unfortunately, qualifying met our expectations. Finding grip was the main issue, and even with the softest tire allocation in this range here, this year’s compounds are still really hard overall. This resulted in significant difficulties in bringing the tires up to their optimal operating temperatures.

The E22 is much more stable and comfortable with a lot of fuel, so our average race time should be better. There aren’t a lot of very clever strategic options available to us, but nevertheless, we will consider all options to give us the best opportunities during the race.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Sauber

Adrian Sutil – 17th

Esteban Gutierrez – 18th

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « This weekend has shown so far that it is a difficult track for us. This is evident in the qualifying result. In these conditions, Adrian’s last lap was good in the first two sectors, but we were surprised by the time we lost today in the third sector. We must do everything in the race to be on the same pace as the cars ahead of us in order to be ready to seize any opportunities that come our way. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 19th

Max Chilton – 21st [22nd on the grid]

John Booth, Team Director: Overall, a somewhat disappointing session, but for good reasons. We finished the day once again close to Q2, but ultimately we were simply not fast enough. The session was not without problems, with Jules’ radio issue just before leaving the garage for his first run. With the complex management of the ERS system, and with traffic management, he did a good job on his own without the support of the engineers. His second run was not perfect and I’m sure there was still room for improvement, but we were still a bit short.

Max had a good weekend overall, but he went off track at the end of Free Practice 3, and in his final stint today it appeared that he lost some time on the straights, which warrants an explanation. We were satisfied with our performance on the long stints Friday afternoon and although the temperatures will be warmer tomorrow, which will of course affect the tires, I am confident that we will manage all of this well and have a good race.

Finally, congratulations to Williams for their result in qualifying today. It’s always encouraging to see examples of hard work rewarded by a significant improvement in performance.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Caterham

Kamui Kobayashi – 20th

Marcus Ericsson – 22nd [21st on the grid]

Cedrik Staudohar, Track Support Manager for Renault F1: « We did not encounter any particular problems today, and we extracted the maximum possible from our package. In FP3, we worked to refine energy management and the turbo, which works much harder at this altitude. Overall, the power unit worked well as expected, but it is hard for the team to find speed with the car. Kamui did a good job in staying ahead of Chilton, and we will see what tomorrow brings for both cars. »

– Read the drivers’ statements