21/10/2024
NEWS STORY
Liam Lawson: "It was a good race; I didn't expect that to be honest.
"We had a great first lap, I just went for every little gap and made up some positions. We made a really good step up with the car yesterday, which we hoped would replicate in the race today and thankfully it did. The car was really strong and it did exactly what we hoped it would do. The Hard [tyre] works well for us, and we had good pace too. When I boxed and we got some clean air we were able to keep extending longer than we'd planned and I think for me, doing yesterday's sprint, I took notes from what others were doing, which really helped. The whole team have put a lot of effort into preparing me for this, a lot of extra hours knowing it was my first weekend back in the car so a big thanks to everyone in the team for making this happen. Mexico is a very different track so we'll see what we can do there next week."
Yuki Tsunoda: "It was a tough and frustrating race today. I started on mediums on a one-stop race, while other drivers had different strategies starting on the hard tyres to keep the first stint longer before pitting for new mediums. We'll have a look at it to understand if something could have been done better, as well as to get some learnings for the future. Unfortunately, I made a mistake in the second part of the race, where I lost control and spun in Turn 1 and that certainly didn't help our race. It was a very strange moment and I'm not sure what happened there, so it's something we'll definitely need to review. Mexico is close, I'll come back stronger."
Jody Egginton - Technical Director: "We took a clear step forward with the cars in yesterday's qualifying and the race pace shown today has validated that these set up changes have also delivered a much better race car relative to the sprint race, with a notable improvement in pace and tyre consumption in today's race. With Liam starting at the back due to the PU penalty it was always the plan to target a long first stint on the hard tyre. However the pace he has been able to run at for the entire stint was very strong, allowing him pass a few cars on track and overcut some more. He has been rewarded with points in his first race back with us, which is a credit to him and a reward for the team for all the hard work put in here in Austin and also in Faenza and Bicester over the last period. Yuki's race was more conventional, starting on the medium tyre like the majority. Early on he was running solidly towards the front of the midfield, however with his pace starting to drop away a little, and some pressure coming from behind, we were forced to stop potentially a bit earlier than we would have liked. This combined with the early management on the Hard tyre meant he lost a bit of ground in the middle part of the race. Whilst pushing on later in the race he was unfortunately given a 5sec penalty for a pass on Alex (Albon) and also spun trying to pass Pierre (Gasly), hence he was not in the fight for the last point scoring position at the end of the race. Looking at the weekend as a whole, it's good to have extracted the expected performance from the new floor here and it's good to be scoring points. However, Haas are also delivering strong performances, but there are five more races to go so we need to be focused on extracting the maximum from the remaining car updates and also delivering good weekends to meet our objectives for the season."
Laurent Mekies - Team Principal: "We can be pleased with our team performance here in Austin, with an excellent ninth place finish from Liam on his return, thanks to a very well executed race from last on the grid. He has done a great job all weekend, especially when one considers he has not raced since October last year. He was well prepared, having spent all season with us, working with the team at the factory and at the Grands Prix, so that for this weekend he was pretty much ready from the get-go. Yuki's pace was also strong all weekend, starting the Sprint from ninth and today from tenth. In the race after a good first stint on the Medium, he did not have much free air in the second stint on the Hards and had to settle behind Gasly before a spin put him further back. Austin marked the start of an intense six race battle to decide the championship positions, not just at the front of the field. With one Haas finishing ahead of us today, they have now overtaken us for sixth place, but we have seen the hierarchy change very often this season. Like most teams, we brought updates here and we're pleased with how they performed. We think there is still room for improvement with them, and we need to get everything out of our package in the remaining five races. Everyone in Faenza and in Bicester is focused on that, and we are looking forward to a super fight all the way to the end."