Sat: Toro Rosso, Renault, Manor, Sauber

Ahead of tomorrow’s Brazilian Grand Prix, Renault duo Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer were rather underwhelming as they both wanted more out of the session.

Toro Rosso:
Daniil Kvyat: “A decent qualifying. I don’t think there was any more we could extract from the car and a P14 is the most we could achieve today. My Q2 lap was quite clean in these tricky conditions – there was a lot of wind and it was hard to find a good balance of the car – and I’m pleased with my job today. I have to say that the track conditions changed a lot from yesterday to today and we therefore had to adapt ourselves and carry on learning during the session, which wasn’t easy. Having said that, it’s always an enjoyable track to drive and every single corner is different to the next one – it’s definitely a circuit with a lot of character! Hopefully tomorrow there will be some rain so that we can have a good race!”

Carlos Sainz Jr: “Not the best of qualifying sessions for me, but not the worst either. We knew it wasn’t going to be an easy one and that we were going to struggle a bit at this track. Q3 was just too difficult to get into today. My start to the session was okay and I put in a good lap time in Q1, but from that point onwards we didn’t really improve anymore and we were out in Q2. We will now have to analyse this, see why we couldn’t find any lap time there, and get ready for tomorrow. I think it will be an interesting race – in dry conditions it will be tricky for us to fight for points but if it rains anything can happen and I also enjoy it in the wet… I will definitely do a rain dance before going to bed tonight!”

Renault:
Jolyon Palmer: “I’m pleased with reaching Q2 again today even though I wish we could be a bit higher on the grid for the race. I had a couple of lock-ups during my last run and had no rubber left on my front right, which is why I ran wide. It is a shame as FP3 this morning was really good and we could have done better still this afternoon; I wanted a little bit more ! Nonetheless tomorrow is race day, we will have to see what the weather conditions are first and then we will be pushing to the limit as always.”

Kevin Magnussen: “Today’s result isn’t what we hoped for. We looked good yesterday and I felt comfortable in the car however I struggled with balance all day today and missed out on accessing Q2 this afternoon as a result. We need to understand why and will work on that overnight. I look forward to having a better performance in the race tomorrow.”

Manor:
Pascal Wehrlein: “It was a tough day yesterday, so to get in the car today and find it was more or less where we needed it to be was a huge relief, given the job ahead of us for this afternoon. We lost some time and important preparation along the way, but it’s nice to recover from that quite quickly and be in a good position for qualifying. Well, on the one hand, we’re in front of both Saubers, so that’s important and the box ticked for what we needed to achieve today. But there was more to come and that’s a little frustrating. My best lap was on my first set of tyres and with three runs, that should have been two more opportunities to improve. On the second set I made a small mistake, which cost me a couple of tenths. We were only a couple of tenths away from Q2 today, so it’s disappointing that we had to abort the final run, but there was so much traffic in the last corners. Conditions were quite tricky today; could be the same tomorrow also. I’m looking forward to making the most of that.”

Esteban Ocon: “I can’t say I’m satisfied with qualifying. We did get ahead of Sauber – both of them – but unfortunately that doesn’t count now because I have to line up behind them. That’s how it is and we will have to hope for a good start and push hard to get ahead of them. The track here is awesome and I love it, but it is very small and the last corner is pretty slow, so there was a lot of traffic. The first corner will be interesting tomorrow, so it’s important that we don’t get caught up in any situations and focus instead on using them to our advantage. We have a job to do as a team tomorrow and that is what I’m focused on.”

Sauber:
Marcus Ericsson: “First of all, I am very thankful that my car crew managed to change the engine between FP3 and qualifying. They did an extremely good job in between the two sessions, having a very limited amount of time. Qualifying itself was rather difficult. Yesterday we had issues during my stints, so I could not do as many laps as we wanted in FP2. Because of the engine problem in FP3, I could not run a proper lap. We were on the back foot going into qualifying. With all that in mind, we could not have expected much more.”

Felipe Nasr: “I am very disappointed with this result. I was on a good lap until Turn 11. Then in Turn 12 I came across traffic, which cost me some time on the way up to the finish line. I also had a misfire at the end of this lap. My chances for a good lap time were over then. I am disappointed that I could not get a clean lap. Now I will focus on tomorrow. Anything can happen here because of the weather conditions. I will stay positive for my home race.”