British GP : Post-Qualifying reaction from Sebastian Vettel and Aston Martin

Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team’s drivers Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll qualified 10th and 15th respectively in Friday qualifying ahead of the inaugural Sprint qualifying race at Silverstone.

Sebastian Vettel missed out the chance to qualify much higher in Q3 after failed to extract more out of his car. The German looked comfortable in the cockpit of AMR21 compared to his teammate.

Lance Stroll struggled throughout the day, at the conclusion of morning FP1 session Stroll said he lacks confidence in his car. Team managed to make some changes for his liking, that helped him to get out of Q1, but it was not good enough for him to crack Q3.

Sebastian Vettel (P10)

“I would have liked to end Q3 higher up because the car has looked competitive and the pace came quite easily today.

“Overall, it was a decent session: I was happy with my best lap in Q2, but in Q3 I struggled to find more from the car. So I think we could have been a few places higher up.

“It was great to see the big crowd here today and I guess the new format made Friday more interesting for the fans.”

Lance Stroll (P15)

“P15 is not how we wanted to start our home event, but there is an opportunity to improve tomorrow thanks to the Sprint Race format.

“I was not totally comfortable in the car during practice, but I think we made some progress in qualifying, although it was not enough to make Q3.

“It was a challenge to only have one practice session today before qualifying, but it is the same for everyone.

“We will go away tonight and learn from today to make sure we maximise the second practice session before Sprint Qualifying.”

Otmar Szafnauer, CEO & Team Principal

“We had some technical difficulties with Lance’s car in Q1, which necessitated our having to make some changes to it for Q2.

“He did his best with that new set-up in Q2, but he was hampered by oversteer at Maggotts and Becketts, as a result of which he was not able to progress to Q3.

“Sebastian was happier with his car and, benefiting from a few tenths advantage of a fresh engine, duly made it through to Q3, although on his best Q3 lap he lost a small amount of time at Turns Six and Seven, and Turns 11 and 12.

“But what matters most now is converting today’s results into as good a performance as possible in tomorrow’s Sprint Race Qualifying, so as to optimise our chances of scoring solid points in Sunday’s feature race.”