[0:00]I feel very good. I mean, I'm very happy for the team. Of course, it's always, you know, a lot of expectations. Um, a lot of work has gone into trying to bring these upgrades and it's always just difficult to to anticipate or to to know what to expect coming into a new weekend, but since lap one, literally, um turn one, everything felt better. I've had a little bit more like, um like last year we just having some confidence in the car and and I felt that and I felt like I've exploited that through through the whole day today, so a nice start to the weekend, probably better than we're expecting, honestly. Um, we're expecting better of course, but we didn't know in terms of quantity how it was going to be, so a little surprise, but a pleasant one for sure. It was a pretty messy session. I I struggled a lot. Um, with the car and uh medium I couldn't get a a good lap in. And then on soft uh from all of a sudden, you know, the car became more alive, I felt more comfortable. Um, of course, it was a shame not to try the soft in FP1. But uh, I think, you know, there was a little bit left on the table, uh, but I think, you know, it was despite everything was a decent result and uh, you know, with the team we did a great job on uh recovering and uh, you know, now we look forward to tomorrow, you know, definitely we'll uh, we'll dig deep tonight to see what we can do better in order to to be faster tomorrow. reasonably happy, obviously. I think, um, yeah, the car had had great potential today, which was um, which was really nice to see. I think it was a bit of a surprise for us on the on the soft. Um, you know, Ferrari and and especially Charles looked very strong all day and um, yeah, my lap in in Q3 or SQ3 didn't feel the best. So to to end up third is is a good effort and obviously for Lando to a good result too, so, um, happy with the work the team have done and a little bit more room to to improve myself. We kind of expected that situation where Mercedes is probably still the car to to beat, McLarens did a very big step forward, but uh, I felt like they didn't really optimize their first races of the season, so they were always there but they didn't put everything together. On our side, we have just been today particularly, we've struggled with tires. Medium were were working very well. On the soft, it wasn't it wasn't a nice feeling, so on that we've got to to look at it. Uh, we know that in the race pace, we are stronger, but in terms of qualifying there's some work to be done. It feels um more together. Of course, there are still things that we are working on, but it's been a really positive step for us. Um, you know, last year races we were like over a second behind. I would say we have almost half that gap now. So that's positive. We're still very weak in the first sector, which is mainly high speed, um, so we know that we need to work on that. Um, but yeah, the rest seemed all a bit more together, so bit happier with that. Um, at least it seems like we we have cleared a little bit the the midfield, let's say. Pretty surprising how big a jump McLaren and and Ferrari have made, so that's pretty, pretty damn impressive. We knew they were pretty close the gap, but uh, you know, today they've been quicker than us. My side, I've been struggling today. Miami's not a track that I love to be honest, especially in these hotter conditions. Um, but, you know, it's only sprint qualifying, so let's see what tomorrow brings. Yeah, I thought we would be stronger than we were today.
[3:29]Um, I have to do some work over the over over night to try to figure out why we're not that quick. And um, yeah, I was hopeful coming in positive that we're going to be much higher, but um not meant to be. I'm happy because we turned around something that, you know, was was quite tough and it took us a while to understand. Um, and I think we are finally, you know, getting in the rhythm and understanding some of the pace that we lacked and yeah, doing good laps all day, not drag that I know in a sprint weekend that it's more difficult than Yeah, just very positive today. I think, it's been a good break for us to to kind of reset it and and go again and understand where we need to work and we worked, I think, really well on the on the right directions and, yeah, I'm pleased with the performance today, but, of course, it's just the start of the weekend, more to come tomorrow. Well, it was smooth, at least.
[4:20]Uh, got through SQ3, which is a start, but then to be uh, yeah, second off, I don't know why. You know, I've never been uh, more than than a tenth off this year, but, when it mattered, so, uh, yeah. I don't know what's going on. Uh, it's been very difficult since this morning. Uh, we've seen something it's not quite working on on my side and I'm having a lot of wheel spin and unfortunately, we didn't really have enough time to get to the bottom of it. But uh, yeah, hasn't felt good. Um, so we'll have to work out to to improve it for tomorrow because I think I'm going to struggle a lot in the race, um, as it stands, but still managed to get the two cars in the top 10, which is good. Um, but we just have a lot more potential to to unlock. Obviously a bit disappointed that uh, we were not able to go through. It was so close to go to Q3 and um, yeah, the lap was not too bad, but a few, few things here and there that could have done better, but the same for everyone at the end of the day. Everyone can can find a little bit of lap time here or there, but, yeah, shame, uh, because I, I felt like today we could have done a Q3, if everything went perfect. But at the same time, happy because the FP1 we had was a big mess. Uh, I had a big problem, lost half, half an hour in the garage, and the time I was running, it was not properly configurated the car, so, yeah, happy to go to qualy and still be able to progress and and do a good job. I mean, you know, not so much different, I suppose from where we, uh, you know, left it off some weeks ago. Um, but yeah, I think, uh, more or less clean session, not, you know, 100% perfect, but I think we get more or less the most out of it and, uh, yeah, that that reflects where we are. It's the hottest conditions that we've driven this car and and it's posing a few challenges, let's say. It's, uh, it's been challenging to put on the limit. It's it's, um, a bit unpredictable on the limit and those, you know, abundance of low speed corners, I've really been struggling to have a balance that I can trust and push. And, you know, with the walls close as well, it's tough to, uh, to go for a full qualy lap, um, when you don't fully have the car underneath you, you know. So, we made a big, big step from FP1 to sprint qualy. I'm really happy about that because, um, you know, if we kept the same, we would have been really, really in trouble, but, um, you know, we need another step of that magnitude for, for the real thing, uh, tomorrow. Yeah, better, better for sure. I think that's like a genuine Q2 for us, so, um, uh, I'm happy with that. I think that's progress from the team. Upgrades are working. I think, um, exploring different philosophies today, so we, I think we just, um, obviously not much time to test things, being a sprint weekend. But still trying them anyway. Um, I think we've learned a lot now. I think tonight we're just going to go through the data to figure out, um, what's good, what's bad and and, uh, for our first go edit, I'm I'm happy. Just the the step we expected, so a a bit of a step in a in a good direction, a bit more performing, fighting to get into SQ2. Especially given the fact that on my side of the garage, we've been having a lot of issues with energy management on the outlap and the push lap, and probably we didn't optimize the the day and we were still in SQ2, which in Suzuka and China with perfect laps, perfect energy, we were still in in SQ1, so I I'll take that as a positive. Basically, I mean, we, we struggled a lot in, I had a lot of issues in P1, so just getting through to Q2 was was good and then we just knew that we had, uh, to squeeze everything out, so we just tried to go for one lap to use everything from the tire. Uh, honestly, I'm not really sure it worked because relative to the others, we actually made a smaller step from Q1 to Q2, so lots to look into, but to be honest, for myself, I'm, I'm just happy to to have gotten into SQ2, because I was having so a very difficult session in in FP1. Um, so just to be on the pace and competitive, you know, in in two laps, was, I think, it's pretty good. It was a series of, uh, bad events, to be honest, through through, uh, Q1. Um, had, uh, a little bit misplaced on the on the garage exit and ended up a lot further back on track and didn't have a, a very good outlap and then I had a big flat spot in turn one and destroyed the tire. So, um, I tried to do the second lap on the on the flat spot of tire and just had a lot of vibrations, so, um, yeah, knocked us knocked us out, unfortunately. I think the car has actually improved from this morning. So it's a shame. It's been a rough day, really.
[8:38]It's, it's been, um, an untidy FP1, uh, we had like deployment issues and we didn't have like a clear, uh, low fuel running, uh, which was quite difficult. Um, and also we didn't, uh, have a great car underneath us. I think, um, you know, it was quite difficult to to put the lap together. Obviously, we saw that lockup. Um, it's not the first of the day, we have many, uh, as well. Um, and yeah, there's plenty to to work on. I think it's been, um, probably the the most difficult day of the year so far, so we'll see. We progressed but we just having too many issues at the moment. Uh, I only managed to do a one lap in qualifying, uh, we've lost a lot of track time in practice. We keep having these issues that we really have to, I think that's priority number one, uh, at the moment, to be able to maximize the package. Although, I was very happy with my first lap. I only had one. Um, at some points, we were looking like we were going to make it to SQ2, which is already a progress, so, yeah, but I think the priority now is to get on top of of of things to make sure that we can have a smooth day tomorrow and, uh, see where we end up on Sunday. The car feels better, so that's good, you know, we definitely gained some load, especially high to medium speed. Um, still obviously need to make further steps, but at least the feeling is better and, uh, heading into right direction. Vibrations were better, uh, so I think some fixes since, uh, Japan and the first three races, so yeah, less vibration in the engine, but, uh, yeah, fortunately the performance we didn't touch it, uh, so probably we're still a little bit more, yeah, far behind from the others. You know, they did improve their cars since Japan and and we only improved the reliability, so probably in performance we're a little bit, uh, a step behind them. I was hoping we're going to do a lap or two, but, uh, we had the issue, so there was no, uh, no laps today.
