It was a very disappointing qualifying on our side of the garage. Unfortunately, the yellow flag meant I had to lift off through sector two and I lost quite a lot of lap-time as a result. It’s unfortunate as there was pace for a lot more today. I think as a team we’ve worked well all weekend during the practice sessions and had a good set-up on the car for qualifying, so it’s disappointing not to show our potential. Tomorrow, we still target points. Anything can happen and we’ll push hard to make up some places and comeback. The weekend is not over.

We have to be pleased with our qualifying session today. I wasn’t totally confident with the car balance in any of the practice sessions this weekend. In qualifying, though, the temperature was a lot cooler and I was able to attack and feel the car a little bit better. It was really exciting to drive these cars again with low fuel and peak performance from the tyres. Qualifying is always amazing to experience in Formula 1 and I have missed that feeling! The plan for tomorrow is to attack and score points. We’ll try to make up some positions from our starting spot but we have to be wary of the cars around us as some of our competitors are starting on the Medium tyres so it will be a close race.

We have mixed emotions after today’s qualifying with Fernando in ninth and Esteban in sixteenth. On a positive side, it was nice to see Fernando going into Q3 and that’s a good start to the season for him. However, it was bad luck for Esteban to not make it further than Q1 with a yellow flag hindering his second run. The potential was there for a solid team result. Tomorrow is race day and we’ll try to push even more. We’ve made gains in each session so far this weekend, so let’s see what happens when the lights go out.