30/11/2024
NEWS STORY
Esteban Ocon: "It's been another busy day here in Qatar.
"In the Sprint, we did all we could from seventeenth on the grid, making some overtakes to finish fourteenth at the chequered flag. In Qualifying, I felt like I did a clean lap in Q1 with no mistakes but we could not progress through the session. Of course, we will aim for a similar race start tomorrow as we did in today's Sprint and target making up some places. We are sticking together and we will continue our hard work to be ready for the Race."
Pierre Gasly: "In the end, a day of mixed feelings for us with the Sprint Race and Qualifying. It was extremely tight out there in both sessions. We gave it our all in the Sprint and, finishing ninth, just outside the points, was probably the best we could achieve. Importantly, we learnt a few things ahead of Sunday's Race. I was not too happy with Qualifying as we missed out on Q3 by just a hundredth of a second. We definitely had the pace for the top ten but it was very fine margins out there and we probably could have done a better job in maximising our overall performance. It's a tough track, very tricky conditions but I think we are well prepared for tomorrow's Race. We will aim to take the fight to our rivals tomorrow and target some valuable points."
Oliver Oakes, Team Principal: "Not the smoothest of days and after how the car has been performing over the weekend so far, we probably wanted a bit more out of today. Pierre did a great job to qualify at the front of the midfield yesterday, but we couldn't convert that into points in the Sprint. In Qualifying, Pierre again looked competitive but struggled a bit on his final lap in Q2. Esteban did well to shoot up the order at the start of the Sprint taking four places on the opening lap. He isn't totally comfortable in the car and we're working with him to understand why and how to make improvements. Tomorrow is a long race, and the field is so close, so we'll fight all the way to the end and see where we end up."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Qatar here.