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

Manor Racing

Wehrlein beached his MRT05 in the gravel in FP3, ending his session and bringing out the red flags. Having already sat out FP1 for Jordan King, he was very short of practice around the Circuit of The Americas but made up for lost time in qualifying. He comfortably outpaced his team mate by 0.258s.

Pascal Wehrlein, 20th, 1:38.548: “I made life very difficult for myself this morning, spinning and ending up in the gravel and missing more than half of the session. It was a real bonus to get the car back six minutes from the end of FP3 and the team did a fantastic job to get me out in time to do an out-lap, a timed lap, and an in-lap before the end of the session. I had only taken part in FP2 until that point, having missed the first session, so every lap was critical. My thanks to everyone in my crew for pushing for that as I think it really helped me.

“I threw everything I had at it. It’s another new track for me and it’s one where you really need to get used to the corners and the circuit features and find a good rhythm before qualifying. I wasn’t expecting to find that rhythm again in time; I was feeling pretty unhappy after FP3 and when I was stuck in the gravel, I just couldn’t believe it. It took me a while to come to terms with it, to be honest. So there was quite a lot of pressure and that’s why I’m really happy with my lap. I can’t wait to race now.”

Pretty happy with Qualy considering the few time on track! My team did great! BTW:still didn't switch off my engine😂✌🏽️ @F1 @MercedesAMGF1 pic.twitter.com/zLw0v9EdP0

— Pascal Wehrlein (@PWehrlein) October 22, 2016

Esteban Ocon, 22nd, 1:38.806: “We struggled a bit on the Supersoft. I came out of the garage quite late as we had a problem with a sticking wheel nut, so I had to push on my outlap, which didn’t help. Overall, it was a difficult qualifying. I made a small mistake which cost me some time; it’s a tricky circuit.

“For tomorrow, there will be a lot of different strategies between the teams, some quicker than others, but it should be interesting. We do know our strategy for tomorrow and we’ll see how that works out. I need a good start and hopefully gain a few places right away. One way or another, I’m expecting a nice fight.”

A difficult last run in quali, as we left the garage late we had to hurry and use the tyres…
Lesson learned and onto tomorrow now ✌🏻️😉 !! pic.twitter.com/jyplakBjiD

— Esteban Ocon (@OconEsteban) October 22, 2016

Dave Ryan, Racing Director: “To be honest we came to this race with the expectation that it was going to be quite a challenge so to end up with Pascal in 20th place on the grid, especially when you take into account his lack of track time, is a great result for the team. Esteban’s 22nd place is not a true reflection of his pace but it is what it is and we have done our homework with regards to long runs on race tyres and believe we will be quite strong in the race. So let’s see how it all shapes up tomorrow.”

McLaren Honda

Button complained about the rear of his MP4-31 in free practice, and unusually decided to set his first time in Q1 on the slower soft tyre. Coming back out for a second run on the supersofts, he encountered traffic which ruined his lap and scuppered his chances of making Q2. Alonso did progress, but could only manage 12th.

Fernando Alonso, 12th, 1:37.417: “We weren’t quick enough to make it into Q3 today, and we were lacking some rhythm too. Having said that, getting the car into Q3 in ninth or tenth but then having to start the race on used supersoft tyres would be a problem, as other cars would catch us easily after four or five laps owing to the degradation. So, let’s say that 11th for us would have been pole position and 12th is second-best. We’ll start on new tyres and we’ll be able to attack.

“It seems like all the Mercedes-powered teams here got an extra boost and are more competitive, which has made life a little more difficult for us. If we want to score some points in the race tomorrow we need to raise our game and find a clever way.”

P12 in qualy. We will try to score good points tomorrow! Attack! #austin #usa #mclaren #honda… https://t.co/BExi6RJDRZ

— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) October 22, 2016

Jenson Button, 19th, 1:38.327: “It’s disappointing to be in P19 after qualifying. Our pace was good yesterday and this morning – eighth and ninth positions – so there’s definitely something not quite right there. I went out on the softs to start with and we thought we’d have enough pace, but it was a tough lap and I hit a lot of traffic. If we’d judged it right at the end when we put the supersofts on, it might have been fine, but it wasn’t.

“I had four cars to overtake in the last sector alone, and then the last one [Jolyon Palmer] didn’t move out of the way. He saw me really late and stayed on the racing line, so I had to out brake into the last corner. It’s so important to brake late and carry speed into there and you can’t do that if you’re offline, it hurts the tyres a lot more. It’s disappointing. Hopefully tomorrow we can make up some ground in the race but it’s going to be a tough day – we have good race pace but overtaking around here will be almost impossible for us.”

Reasonable start to the weekend with a P8 yesterday, good steps over night hopefully will… https://t.co/m6l1sorTHk

— Jenson Button (@JensonButton) October 22, 2016

Eric Boullier, Racing Director: “Fernando drove a near-perfect Q2 lap here in Austin today – but, even so, he narrowly failed to go through to Q3, missing out by just 0.169s, ending up 12th.

“However, our car is more competitive relative to our principal rivals’ in terms of race pace than it is in terms of qualifying pace. So, while P12 is far from ideal, it nonetheless gives him a platform from which to attack tomorrow, in an effort to progress through the field to some extent and thereby score world championship points.

“By contrast, Jenson was very disappointed to be eliminated in Q1, having recorded only the 19th-fastest time. Unfortunately, he encountered traffic on what would otherwise have been a very good lap, and was baulked badly at the end of it by Palmer, the combination of those two issues scuppering JB’s chances to show what he could do. Our data shows that, without those problems, he’d have passed through to Q2 every bit as easily as did Fernando.

“It’s irritating, but it happens.”

Yusuke Hasegawa, Honda R&D Co Ltd Head of F1 Project & Executive Chief Engineer: “We weren’t quite able to reach our target of getting into Q3, but, considering how quickly the tyres degrade at this circuit, we believe Fernando is in a good position to secure points by having the freedom of choosing his tyres and providing we can utilise good race strategy in tomorrow’s race.

“Unfortunately, Jenson was caught in traffic during his flying lap in Q1, where he lost a lot of time in Sector Three, but we firmly believe that’s not the true potential of the car. We hope that we can have a good race with him tomorrow.”

Pirelli

Paul Hembery, Motorsport Director: “We had perfect conditions for qualifying, in which we saw the race tactics begin already. With both Mercedes starting on the soft tyre, plus Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, there’s a fundamental strategic variation that is likely to hold the key to the race tomorrow. Once again track temperatures were considerably higher this afternoon than the morning, and we’d expect similar conditions for the race tomorrow. We’ve seen in the past that strategy can help boost starting positions, so we can expect an eventful race tomorrow.”

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