Sakhir GP – post qualifying update

05.12.20

p17

0m54.796s

Today’s qualifying turned out to be pretty hectic. With so many cars on this shorter track layout I had to be careful. And even though many of last week’s corners remain, the nature of the circuit has changed, and I struggled to find the best set-up.

With so few corners in this configuration, each one is really important. We made changes after FP1 and FP2, so in each session I had to do a bit of a reset and adapt to a new set-up.

I didn’t feel like I was stringing together good laps until the last one – which was going well until a mistake from me on the last corner! I was up on my delta, and even though I hadn’t nailed the final right-hander all day, I decided against the safe option and went for it.

I tried, but it didn’t work out. The time lost cost me a position to Kevin Magnussen, and a shot at Q2, so that was a bit disappointing.

From today’s experience I’m expecting a crazy race tomorrow, and I hope that will present some opportunities I can take advantage of. My goal is to be on it, be flexible, keep it clean, and make the best of any situations.

From a team point of view, it was great to see George fighting for pole position. Along with many of the other younger drivers I felt George was a good bet to do well. He’s very strong on Saturdays – and one of the best in the field in qualifying

I’ve every confidence he is going to do well tomorrow, and of course it shows I’m usually up against no slouch!