09/04/2022
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen: "The weekend so far has been a bit of a struggle, there is a gap between Charles and I, but second of course is not bad and I think there is a lot more potential in the car than we are showing at the moment. I didn't really feel 100% in the car today, so we tried to change a few things in the set up, but it didn't quite make the improvements we hoped for and we'll do the best we can tomorrow. I think we have a good race car and in race conditions everything stabilises a bit, so it is more consistent. Let's hope we can have a good race tomorrow."
Sergio Perez: "I think qualifying was going well, Q2 especially and then there were red flags on a couple of occasions which meant we didn't get to experiment with the tyres, it is always hard with strategy when you get red flags. We went for three laps and carried that fuel just to find out at the end that the double push didn't work any better than just setting one lap. It wasn't the right thing to do and that costs us a couple of tenths, but Charles put in a tremendous lap, he put everything together and I didn't. Hopefully tomorrow in the race we can be a lot closer, make it hard for them, have a strong race and enjoy it. I like this car, we are all learning every time we drive these new cars and tomorrow in the race I want to make a big step."
Christian Horner, Team Principal and CEO: "That was a great performance by both our drivers. At certain points they both looked like they may be able to steal pole, but Charles put in a great lap and it was just out of reach for us, but we'll come back and try to beat them tomorrow. Max's lock up cost him about three-tenths and Checo had a small d-rate on his first lap and carried an extra tenth of fuel as well, because he wanted to do three laps, but we are still on the front row and P3, so we'll take that. I still think under higher fuel we will be in better shape, and with these DRS zones it could be a really interesting race."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Melbourne, here.