USA Grand Prix – Saturday 22nd October 2016. Austin, Texas

Williams

Getting both cars into Q3 marked an upturn in form for Williams, with Bottas just shading his team mate by one tenth. Starting ahead of Force India’s Perez, Williams will look to regain lost ground in the battle with Force India for fourth in the constructors’ championship.

Valtteri Bottas, 8th, 1:37.116: “This was a good qualifying for us as a team. We’re in-between the Force India’s for the start of the race tomorrow, and that’s after they had more pace than us today. Hopefully, tomorrow it will be a different case. It’s going to be a long race and we know we can compete against them with our race pace. The progress we’ve made since today’s practice with our set-up will hopefully help us, as it’s going to be a very close and aggressive battle with Force India. We need to do everything we can to be ahead of both of them. It’s a battle we can win.”

Felipe Massa, 9th, 1:37.269: “The positive from today’s qualifying is that both cars are right in the middle of the Force India’s so we are well positioned to race them tomorrow. The only downside is that the gap to Hulkenberg’s car is bigger than we would have liked, but our car is feeling better on long runs at this track than shorter runs which will help us tomorrow. We need to get everything right in the race tomorrow, especially the strategy, to maximise the points we score.”

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: “Today was a reasonable qualifying performance. We will never be getting too excited about finishing eighth and ninth, but knowing where the car is at this point in the season we have to be reasonably happy. The car wasn’t looking great on low fuel pace yesterday, so we’ve just been chipping away at improving it. I don’t think we’ve managed to get all of the pace out of both cars, but the work we have done overnight has put us in a more respectable position. Our long run pace has been quite strong so far this week, so the goal was to get in amongst our competitors in the championship today. We’ve done that, so we are well set to have a good race tomorrow.”

Renault Sport

Palmer made it into Q2 for the second race in a row and with his renewed confidence, he will look to make up places from the start. Magnussen was three places and three-tenths further back.

Kevin Magnussen, 18th, 1:38.317: “We didn’t qualify where we expected today so that’s pretty frustrating. Yesterday the car felt pretty good so we didn’t make any set-up changes, yet the car felt very different out on track. Where we were strong yesterday we weren’t today so we definitely need to work out what’s going on. Hopefully we have decent pace in the race as it’s a circuit where you can overtake here, it’s not impossible to still get a reasonable result.”

We didn’t qualify where we expected today. Hopefully we have decent pace in the race as it’s a circuit where you can overtake here #USGP 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/L3dGTcexQk

— Kevin Magnussen (@KevinMagnussen) October 22, 2016

Jolyon Palmer, 15th, 1:37.935: “I think I got pretty much the most out of the car today, it’s my best qualifying for a while so I’m feeling good! I ended up doing just one good lap in Q1 and only one lap in Q2 but they were both pretty decent so I’m happy with 15th. For tomorrow, it’s difficult to tell exactly what our race pace will be like but I’m hoping we can have another good one.”

Q2 again! Good job from the team. P15 is better than we've been for a while! #USGP #JP30 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/2QOQKVufLR

— Jolyon Palmer (@JolyonPalmer) October 22, 2016

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Kevin didn’t get a clean lap in Q1 and P18 is quite a way from where we expected to be. Jolyon got through into Q2 thanks to his first flying Q1 lap which was a good effort, and with a perfect lap, better than P15 could have been possible. “Unlike last year we don’t expect to encounter any rain. The super soft tyre doesn’t seem to be in favour here at COTA so soft and medium move to the fore for strategy. Overtaking is possible here and if we can tailor swift getaways from both drivers at the start all is not lost.”

Scuderia Toro Rosso

Sainz suffered two separate punctures in FP3, reducing his running. As such, it was a huge achievement to get into Q3 and qualify tenth. Kvyat had a quieter time, exiting in Q2 but with free tyre choice, the opportunity of a double points finish is there for Toro Rosso.

Carlos Sainz, 10th, 1:37.326: “I can’t be happier than what I’m feeling today after that qualifying session! After quite a complicated FP3, where I didn’t get much track time due to the two punctures, to suddenly put such a great lap together in Q2 and get through to Q3 is just amazing – I was really happy when I was told my position over the radio! I’m sure the team was also very pleased, it’s definitely something we needed after some tough race weekends. Today is one of the days I will always remember of my 2016 season! Tomorrow will be a tough race but we will certainly try our best to fight for points!”

.@carlosainz: "Ha sido divertido rodar hoy y hemos tenido un viernes positivo en general" https://t.co/sAfW7YXnaS #USGP #carlo55ainz pic.twitter.com/N5rqXSc8RP

— Carlos Sainz Info (@carlosainzinfo) October 21, 2016

Daniil Kvyat, 13th, 1:37.480

“Not a bad qualifying session. The car was a bit difficult for me to drive today, with some small balance issues… Nevertheless, it wasn’t a bad lap time considering this and we were very close to Q3 – we only missed out by a tenth and a half. On the positive side, we get to choose the tyres with which to start tomorrow’s race, something that’s important from a strategy point of view. Many things can happen in the race and the midfield is very tight, so we can try and fight for points.”

Jody Egginton, Head of Vehicle Performance: “As a team, we are quite pleased with the qualifying result today following a solid day yesterday. However, FP3 was not straight forwards for both drivers: Carlos suffered two punctures which severely limited his running and forced him to go early on his supersoft set; while Daniil had to conduct a bit of rebalance work to get the car optimised for the change in wind direction. Overall, both drivers were happy with the car balance on Friday, so we knew the pace of the car was sufficient to be competitive in the mid field – qualifying was just a case of keeping out of traffic and making the most of the new tyre. Q1 passed without incident and we were able to abort the second run with Carlos once it became apparent that our direct competitors were not improving sufficiently. Both drivers used scrubbed tyres in Q2 run 1 to get a measure of track conditions and followed this up with new tyres runs. Carlos had an almost perfect lap on his second run, whilst Daniil was strong in parts of sector 2 but struggled in a couple of sector 3 corner entries, costing some time and resulting in him not making Q3, which is a pity as he had been competitive in this sector all weekend. The Q3 lap for Carlos was not as good as his Q2 lap. Having said that, the benchmark was set quite high, which is again a shame as 8th was possible. However, 10th is a good reward for the team’s hard work this weekend, with everybody happy to see our car back in Q3. Our thoughts now move to the race, where we will be able to put what we learned during Friday long runs to good use and hopefully fight for points.”

Force India

Perez was unfortunate to be bumped out of Q3 in the dying seconds, missing out by one tenth. Starting 11th, he will have the consolation of free tyre choice for the race. Hulkenberg did make Q3 and impressed once again to be ‘best of the rest’ in seventh.

Nico Hulkenberg, 7th, 1:36.628: “Lining up seventh on the grid is as good as it gets today. Once again, we’re the first after the three big teams, which is where we can realistically expect to be. We knew we would perform well here, but I am actually quite surprised by the big margin we have over the cars behind us. The start and the first lap will be fundamental for the race, so I will need to keep out of trouble, put my head down and push hard. Choosing the right strategy is where we will focus tonight – I think there are a few different options, so we will need to see which one gives us the best opportunity. Looking at the gaps ahead and behind us, we may be in for a bit of a lonely afternoon, but I wouldn’t mind it at all – I just want a strong result!”

Sergio Perez, 11th, 1:37.353: “It has been a messy day – not only qualifying, but final practice as well. For some reason, I’ve been quite a long way off the pace and we’ve lost some of the performance we had yesterday. This morning we found an issue with one of the components at the rear of the car, which impacted on my pace. I thought we had solved that going into qualifying, but I still believe there is an issue with the car because the data showed it was very difficult for me to match my teammate in the braking zones. The car also felt nervous through the high-speed corners. Hopefully we can understand where I’m losing out and figure out a solution so that it does not impact on my race pace tomorrow.”

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: “The car has been quick here straight out of the box and it’s satisfying to see Nico qualify in seventh place. He clearly had the edge over the cars behind him in Q3 and should be able to race well from there. Being right behind the top three teams is probably the maximum we can hope for on a regular day at this stage of the season, but we still needed to get the best out of our package to be there. Sergio has struggled for confidence with the car today, but starting from eleventh place could open up some opportunities for us in the race. We will analyse the data tonight to see if there is anything we can do to restore the balance he had with the car yesterday. With the conditions likely to remain the same for tomorrow, we expect to be competitive and bring home a good result.”

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