Brazil GP | Gasly ‘’It feels like pole position’’; Raikkonen ‘’We can be happy’’
It was a great day for Gasly, Raikkonen and both Haas drivers. Ricciardo said it was ‘’not a disaster’’ to miss out on Q3.
Pierre Gasly – P7 (starts P6)
A super Saturday for Pierre Gasly as he won the ‘best of the rest’ battle and qualified a brilliant P7. The Frenchman is a driver reborn since he returned to Toro Rosso.
“I’m really happy with how Qualifying went today! I’d like to pass on a massive thanks to the team for giving me a competitive car. It feels like pole position for us today as P7 in the midfield is the best we can expect. We knew it was going to be a tight Qualifying, so it feels great to get my fourth Q3 in a row. I felt good in the car all weekend, now we need to stay focussed for tomorrow and finish the job by scoring as many points as possible in the race.”
YESSS 7th in Quali!!💪🇧🇷 @ToroRosso
— PIERRE GASLY 🇫🇷 (@PierreGASLY) November 16, 2019
Very happy with my lap, best of the rest today. Focus on the job tomorrow now. pic.twitter.com/6ZS3XpkfoG
Romain Grosjean – P8 (starts P7)
Haas had an unexpectedly good day as a very tough season for them comes towards its conclusion. Both cars managed to get into Q3; they hadn’t done that since the Spanish Grand Prix in May.
“It was a brilliant job by the team. Having both cars in Q3 is unbelievable. Tomorrow might be a different day, but that doesn’t matter, we’ll take the pleasure from today. We didn’t really get to show the speed we had in final practice. I had confidence that we might be around P11. Then obviously Q2 went really well, and Q3 wasn’t too bad. We were only two-hundredths of a second off being best-of-the-rest. I’m happy for the team, it’s a brilliant job from everyone.”
Kevin Magnussen – P10 (starts P9)
“It’s good to have both cars in Q3 again. It looks like we might have something to fight with this weekend, which is really good. There’s nothing to be disappointed about from today. The circuit and conditions were right for our car. It’s been very up-and-down all the way through the year, so it’s not a surprise that we can do this. I’ll be more surprised if we can finish it off tomorrow, we know we struggle a little bit with tire management in the race. We’ll certainly be giving it our all though.”
Good job today guys 🙌
— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) November 16, 2019
Well done 👏👏👏#HaasF1 #BrazilGP #Quali pic.twitter.com/JAVwTM40eD
Kimi Raikkonen – P9 (starts P8)
For the first time since the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the 2007 World Champion managed to get himself into Q3. After only finishing P14 in Q1, he made a big improvement in Q2 to squeeze into the final segment of qualifying.
“We can be happy with today’s result. The margins in the midfield are very close and you can make up a lot of places with just a small difference, but we will take P9 and see what we can do in the race tomorrow. I still feel we have margin for improvement, there is a lot more we can achieve but in the end you always want more. It’s hard to tell how the race will unfold but we will try to do a good job and bring home a good result on Sunday.”
Daniel Ricciardo – P12 (starts P11)
“It’s been really close in the midfield this week and today was no exception. It’s a short lap, not many corners, so everything has to go right. It wasn’t perfect from us today but I like these battles and the fact that it is so close. I struggled a bit on the last run in Q2, our tyres overheated a little bit, but that’s the way it is. We would have liked Q3, but it’s not a disaster and I’m excited for the race. We have a free choice of tyres and I think there will be some opportunities in front of us to progress up the order and take some points.”
