Sat: Lotus, Force India, Red Bull

Editor

Brilliant stuff for Lotus and Force India as both their drivers made it into Q3 ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix.

Lotus
Romain Grosjean:
"It’s great for the team, we’ve been competitive since our first lap here this weekend; staying in the top seven all the time. The car’s been feeling great today; P1 in Q1, P3 in Q2 and finally P5 to start tomorrow. I think everything has been working very well and it’s good that both cars are up there. Tomorrow it’s a tough race, for the brakes definitely, but generally too so we need to care of that but it’s the same for everyone. A podium finish would be fantastic – we can hope – but a top five will be really great. We’ll do our best as always and we’ll see how we get on."

Pastor Maldonado: "That was not too bad! We were expecting this kind of result after yesterday’s practice. The performance of the car here seems to be slightly better than at the other tracks. It may be due to a characteristic of our car for this kind of track with the slow corners and very long, fast straights. It’s positive for the team to have both cars on the third row. It’s a long race, we have good pace but the others are competitive too. Normally, we have better pace in the races than in qualifying which is encouraging. We’ll do our race, push hard as always and hopefully get a good result."

Force India
Nico Hulkenberg:
 
"It was definitely a good day in the office, both for me and for the team with two cars inside the top ten. Seventh is my best qualifying result so far this year, which is really encouraging as we look ahead to the race. The car has been performing well since the start of practice and I think we have a great opportunity to score some good points tomorrow. The task ahead is still going to be challenging because there are some very quick cars around us and we will have a real fight on our hands tomorrow. It will be crucial to get the strategy calls right because the rain yesterday means we don’t have all the data to answer the questions on tyre life. But I think we’re in pretty good shape; I‘m feeling confident and looking forward to a competitive race."

Sergio Perez: "It’s been a promising day and a great effort by the team to have two cars in Q3. At the same time I am not satisfied with my performance because I think I could have been higher than P10. In fact my fastest time in Q2 was much better than my Q3 time, so it’s a bit disappointing. I was just struggling to get temperature into my tyres during my out lap in Q3 and I didn’t have the grip when I needed it. However, I must look forward because I am still in P10 and that’s a good place to start. I’m feeling optimistic of moving forward and scoring some good points. We haven’t been able to do many long runs so there are still some unknowns about the race, but we’ve shown good pace all weekend and I believe we can do the same tomorrow."

Red Bull
Daniil Kvyat:
 
"It wasn’t an easy qualifying but we got the maximum out of the car we could today. We have to keep pushing as we want to be further up the grid; we have a lot of work to do to be as competitive on the straights as our rivals. We knew this track wasn’t going to be easy for us, nevertheless, it’s a competitive position we’re starting from and anything can happen in the race as we have seen in the past."

Daniel Ricciardo: "The weekend so far has been tough, we have struggled for most of it. This is a power circuit and we are power limited. We have been trying a few options with the tyres but we couldn’t find a solution that worked which is quite frustrating. We couldn’t get a happy medium. We don’t seem to be propelling forward at the moment which is disappointing. We’ll do what we can, the team is working hard and we have to keep pushing."