1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 2. Oscar Piastri (McLaren), 3. Lando Norris (McLaren)<\/p>\n
PARC FERM\u00c9 INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Jolyon Palmer)<\/p>\n
Q: Lando Norris, home race, third on the grid but it\u2019s such fine margins out there today?<\/p>\n
Lando NORRIS: Yes, good qualifying and you know I\u2019m not going to be unhappy with third. Of course I\u2019d love to be on top here in Silverstone, but Max did a good job, not quick enough for us today. But still, a fun qualifying. Qualifying here at Silverstone is pretty fast and it\u2019s enjoytable and good fun. Yeah, not the top but still a good day.<\/p>\n
Q: I can only imagine it must have been hard to put laps together with the speed of these corners, the windy conditions, trying to find tiny margins all the time. What are you focusing on to nail the perfect lap?<\/p>\n
Lando NORRIS: Little things today. Little things today, put you ahead of behind. Like, you saw how close Q1 was, which was pretty shocking, and I guess good at the same time. But yeah, little margins, little mistakes, little things. You\u2019re talking a couple of hundredths here and there can win or lose you the game today. So tough, especially with the wind and the conditions. A little bit of rain every now and then. But still, all good fun and still happy with the third.<\/p>\n
Q: You were third last year, you had a chance to win the Grand Prix on the Sunday. Surely there’s a chance coming tomorrow. Fifteen thousandths behind Oscar, you have Max in the fight as well. You’ve had some great battles with those two in the past, what are we thinking?<\/p>\n
LN: I think it\u2019s going to be fun tomorrow. I think it\u2019s going to be a good battle between the three of us. Probably more, you know, with Lewis, with Charles behind, with George as well. It\u2019s going to be an interesting Sunday, so I\u2019m looking forward to it.<\/p>\n
Q: Oscar, second, you were provisional pole after the first runs there of Q3 but couldn\u2019t quite keep it there on the second run. Are you happy with your lap there?<\/p>\n
Oscar PIASTRI: I was happy with the first lap. The first time was mega, to be honest. I was trying to think of how I was going to go faster and I didn\u2019t. So yeah, the last lap was a little bit messy, but it\u2019s been tight all weekend. I think the first time was very good. I don\u2019t know how much the track would have improved, but a little bit on the table, whatever it was, it wasn\u2019t enough. The team\u2019s done a great job. We\u2019ve tried a lot of things this weekend, trying to get a bit more pace. The car\u2019s felt mega all weekend, but there\u2019s been a few points where we were scratching our heads as to why we\u2019re not quicker. So yeah, the team doing a great job getting us back onto the form that we know. It\u2019ll be an exciting race tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Q: Alright, take us under the helmet then. You\u2019ve got provisional pole, you wheel back into the garage, you\u2019ve got more than a tenth margin at this point as well. You said you didn\u2019t know how you were going to find more time. You\u2019re hoping that others aren\u2019t, obviously. But the track\u2019s evolving and somehow you\u2019ve got to go back out there and wind it up. How tricky is that?<\/p>\n
OP: Yeah, it\u2019s tough. Especially when you think it\u2019s a good lap, you don\u2019t want to overdo it and try and go over the limit. I think it was a couple of corners where maybe I was a bit safe on the way in and tried to make up for it on the way out and it didn\u2019t quite work. So yeah, always little bits, it\u2019s fine margins as we know, but ultimately pretty happy with second on the grid. So, I\u2019m looking forward to a fun race.<\/p>\n
Q: And as well, you\u2019ve had some great fights with Lando in the last race. It was a pleasure to watch. You\u2019ve had some good scraps with Max. You\u2019re going to start with them tomorrow. Can you get elbows out?<\/p>\n
OP: Yeah, I think so. It\u2019s going to be a fun race. You know, it\u2019s been very evenly matched between Max, the Ferraris, I saw even George being up there at the end. So I think it\u2019s going to be a pretty evenly paced race tomorrow, and all of have us got slightly different strengths. Red Bull is very quick in a straight line, we\u2019re going to be quick in the high speed. So yeah, it\u2019s going to be a fun one. That\u2019s all. We\u2019re going to enjoy it.<\/p>\n
Q: Max Verstappen, what a lap there at the end. You just pinged them all in, all the sectors. How did you do it?<\/p>\n
Max VERSTAPPEN: It was tricky out there with the wind, through the whole qualifying Q1, Q2, Q3. It was all shifting around a bit. Yeah, a bit different. And around here with these cars, it\u2019s extremely sensitive to it. So yeah, just trying to tidy it up throughout the whole qualifying and that final lap was good enough. But you know, I mean, this is a proper track, in qualifying when you have to go flat out in all these corners. It\u2019s really, really committed and that\u2019s really enjoyable.<\/p>\n
Q: You say the last lap was good enough. It looked pretty unbelievable from when I was watching it. You\u2019ve also got a trimmed out car on downforce, a choice that you made overnight. I was thinking this is a set-up choice with the race in mind, but you\u2019ve nailed it on pole for qualifying already.<\/p>\n
MV: Yeah, exactly. We\u2019re quite quick on the straight, which of course is not that easy in the high speed corners to manage. But we did today, luckily. Of course, we have to wait and see what tomorrow will do, if there\u2019s a bit of rain around and all. But I\u2019m happy, of course, with our qualifying. It\u2019s a big boost for the team as well. Just excited to go racing now tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Q: And you\u2019ve had some great battles with those McLaren drivers already this season. You\u2019re starting ahead of them. You\u2019ve had some fantastic wins already this year. You have the race pace tomorrow. Do you need to keep them behind?<\/p>\n
MV: Difficult to say, but we\u2019ll try. Now we\u2019re going to go racing, we\u2019re going to have fun, and we\u2019re going to try to do the best we can.<\/p>\n
PRESS CONFERENCE<\/p>\n
Q: Many congratulations, Max. What a final lap from you. Just how good was it?<\/p>\n
MV: Pretty good. I mean, it was not easy out there to produce a consistent lap time just because of the wind, the gusts as well that you got out there. The car was moving around a lot even just on straights, so sometimes a bit unpredictable in places because of it. But luckily, that last lap came together quite nicely. Just had to commit a lot in the high speed with this low downforce that we have on the car, which we just tried to build up on. Luckily in Q3, that worked out.<\/p>\n
Q: You were fourth after those first runs of Q3. Just where did you find the time on that last lap?<\/p>\n
MV: Everywhere except the last sector. So, every single corner, a little bit. My first lap, I don’t know, it just felt really different to Q2. Just more oversteer, more understeer in places, and that then made the lap not amazing. But I never thought that I could find whatever it was, almost four tenths, I think. So yeah, it worked, so I’m happy with that.<\/p>\n
Q: Max, it’s been a bit of a recurring theme at Red Bull this year. Unhappy on Friday, big changes overnight, and you guys get it together for Saturday. Just how different does the car feel today compared to yesterday?<\/p>\n
MV: In some places, quite different. Yesterday, I was just understeering a lot but at the same time also having oversteer in places. It was very difficult to balance. I think today, we definitely improved the understeer and that just allowed me to push a bit more because understeer is slow, especially in F1. So, we just needed to try and minimise that.<\/p>\n
Q: So, let’s look ahead to tomorrow. You have good straight-line speed, we saw that today. Just how confident are you in the long run pace of the car?<\/p>\n
MV: Yeah. I mean, let’s see. We\u2019ll just go in there and try to do the best we can. Normally in the race runs, we struggle a bit more on tyre life. I don’t know how that will be tomorrow. We have to wait and see a little bit also how the weather will be in general, if there is some rain or not. The straight-line speed is nice to have but you still need to manage the tyres around here. It’s very tough with all these high-speed corners. But I’m just looking forward to it. I’m not really in a battle, so I\u2019ll just try to have fun and try to get the best possible result.<\/p>\n
Q: Oscar, let’s come to you now. You were fastest after those first runs of Q3. At the time, did you think it was going to be good enough for pole?<\/p>\n
OP: It was a good lap. I was very happy with it, but I kind of felt like every run, the track was improving a bit. So, I felt like I probably needed a bit more, which was correct. The second lap was a bit scruffy, couple of moments that caught me a bit by surprise. I mean, I always hate blaming wind, but I need to see if it was the wind. But also, maybe trying a bit too hard in a couple of places as well to make up for it. Overall, pretty happy. It’s been tight all weekend, especially through qualifying, so P2 is not a bad result.<\/p>\n
Q: Oscar, as you say, it is very tight. Just two tenths of a second separating the top five in qualifying. Have you been surprised by just how close it is?<\/p>\n
OP: Not necessarily. For me, what’s the biggest surprise is how each car is generating their lap time. You look at the speed traces and they all look completely different, but they end up basically at the same point at the end of the lap. So that’s been quite interesting to get our heads around. I’m not that surprised that Max is quick here. It’s quite similar to Suzuka, similar conditions to Suzuka. Clearly, they found some pace from yesterday. I think the big surprise was Ferrari yesterday, and even this morning. So not a huge surprise that it was so tight. Maybe how many teams were involved was a surprise, but it’s been tight in nine out of ten qualifyings this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 2. Oscar Piastri (McLaren), 3. Lando Norris (McLaren) PARC FERM\u00c9 INTERVIEWS(Conducted by Jolyon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-240731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114802046150412206","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}