Both Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers, Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly, did not make it past the first qualifying session (Q3) for the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheim Circuit overnight. Hartley set the 18th quickest time while Gasly the 17th.
“I’m a bit disappointed that we didn’t make it to Q2 today,” commented Hartley. “It was a relatively smooth session, my first lap looked OK so I opted for one lap at the end of the session. In hindsight, maybe doing two laps would have been better with the track improving the way it did.
“In addition, we really lacked some pace on the Ultrasoft tyre today. Thinking of the positives, our long run pace looks quite competitive – we were one of the quickest cars in the midfield during the race simulations.”
“It’s such a shame to go out in qualifying so early,” said Gasly. “We hoped we would see some rain for the session but it didn’t happen unfortunately. It’s pretty difficult for us at the moment because the other teams are improving and we haven’t made the step forward we would have liked, so we need to work hard to catch the others. I know the team is working flat out, but we are still struggling with pace.
“I knew it wouldn’t have been easy to make it to Q2 today, and in the end we missed it by just four-hundredths of a second. However, considering our times yesterday, our race pace looks competitive, so hopefully tonight we can find a good strategy for tomorrow. Everything’s possible – of course we will need some lucky happenings to make our way through the pack, but we will give it our everything to recover as many positions as we can.”
“We recognised some weaknesses from yesterday, so we planned a number of changes to the car and decided how to operate the tyres for FP3 and qualifying,” said Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer). “Unfortunately, it rained during FP3 which meant we couldn’t put our dry setup ideas into practice. The rain was quite heavy so even if we didn’t get representative running, it was useful to get a run in at the end to check the balance of the car, as there was a chance of rain in qualifying – we wanted to make sure we had the car in the right window. We found a good balance with both cars and the drivers were pretty happy going into qualifying.
“Unfortunately, we just didn’t have the right pace today. As we can see from the time sheets, it was once again very tight in the midfield and half a tenth makes a big difference. Thinking about tomorrow’s race, our long run pace yesterday was pretty competitive and we’ve usually been able to manage our tyres in the race better than most, so there’s no reason not to remain positive.
“Since we are starting from the back, some overtaking will be required and we know it will be tricky, but anything can happen. We’ll have to look through all of the strategy options tonight to figure out what we need to do to make the best progress tomorrow.”
German F1 Grand Prix Grid positions
1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m11.212s –
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m11.416s 0.204s
3 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m11.547s 0.335s
4 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Renault 1m11.822s 0.610s
5 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m12.200s 0.988s
6 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1m12.544s 1.332s
7 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1m12.560s 1.348s
8 Carlos Sainz Renault 1m12.692s 1.480s
9 Charles Leclerc Sauber/Ferrari 1m12.717s 1.505s
10 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m12.774s 1.562s
11 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Renault 1m13.657s 2.445s
12 Sergey Sirotkin Williams/Mercedes 1m13.702s 2.490s
13 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 1m13.736s 2.524s
14 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes – –
15 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 1m13.720s 2.508s
16 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Honda 1m13.749s 2.537s
17 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso/Honda 1m14.045s 2.833s
18 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 1m14.206s 2.994s
19 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Renault 1m14.401s 3.189s
20 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault – –
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