2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix Qualifying

Sven Smeets, Sporting Director: The team did a great job overnight to find more performance for today because after FP3 this morning both drivers were happier with the balance of the car than yesterday. For Qualifying the cloud cover disappeared and track temperature creeped up but with clean and well executed runs both drivers proceeded into Q2. We knew it was going to be harder to get into Q3 but again both drivers had great last laps and made it through. In Q3 we had to settle for P9 and P10 after an incident prohibited Alex to complete his final push lap and Franco made some small mistakes which prevented him from taking P8 from [Fernando] Alonso. Nevertheless, the team and the drivers can look back on a solid Qualifying and both are in a good position to fight for points tomorrow.

Franco Colapinto: To achieve Q3 in only my second Qualifying session in F1 is an amazing feeling for me and the team. I was not expecting to go into Q3 as I was just going session by session building up throughout. The car has been on point so far this weekend and I’ve been getting more comfortable with the car and learning a new track. I think we maximised almost every run we did today. We had a difficult start yesterday, but we’ve done a great job to turn it around. It was important to build my confidence up after the crash in FP1 especially at a street track. My mistake in FP1 meant I couldn’t do a long run which could hurt me tomorrow, but I think we can do our prep tonight and understand where I can improve.I’m proud of what we’re already achieving together as this is only the start with plenty of races left. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.

Alex Albon: We’ve had three Q3’s in a row now which is a positive, and getting both cars through to Q3 is good. The car is performing well and the upgrade is working. Funnily enough, I’m actually not that happy with the car this weekend but that’s a positive sign as it shows there’s even more to come and we are still good on race pace. With the issue with the fan in Q3, these things happen. Nobody did it on purpose and the team will review what happened, but realistically I was only going to gain one, maybe two positions if everything went perfectly and we can still fight from the top ten tomorrow.