Pierre Gasly (AT02-05, Car 10)
Third Practice Session – Best lap: 1:30.447, pos. 1^st, 19 laps
Qualifying – Best lap: (Q1) 1:24.704, (Q2) 1:23.817, (Q3) 1:23.326, pos. 5^th(Starting P4)

“I’m very happy to have qualified fifth today, and then to be starting P4 tomorrow after Lewis’ penalty. The team have made such a big improvement to the car since yesterday, as I was really struggling with understeer. It wasn’t the easiest to see if these changes had worked this morning, as FP3 was wet, but as soon as we got to Qualifying, I was competitive and that was really positive. I’m confident heading into tomorrow’s race after the big step-up we’ve made with the car today and I’m hopeful we can score big points in the race.”

Yuki Tsunoda (AT02-04, Car 22)
Third Practice Session – Best lap: 1:31.981, pos. 8^th, 21 laps
Qualifying – Best lap: (Q1) 1:25.409, (Q2) 1:24.054, (Q3) 1:24.368, pos. 10^th* (Starting P9)

“I have to say I’m still slightly disappointed with my performance today, I really believe that the pace of the car was there, and I could’ve been starting tomorrow further up the grid. The team did a fantastic job but unfortunately, I just couldn’t put it all together in Q3. I’ll be starting tomorrow’s race on the Softs, which is a different strategy to most of the other cars around me, so I’ll have to prepare tonight and take every opportunity I can tomorrow. It’s still positive to qualify in the top 10, the main goal for me this weekend is to finish in the points, and I hope that tomorrow I can do that from a strong starting position.”

Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer)

“Following FP2 we made some big changes to the car to improve the balance, as both drivers were continuing to struggle with this in yesterday’s afternoon session. Due to FP3 being wet, we didn’t get the opportunity to try our dry settings ahead of Qualifying, but we saw that these still worked well in those conditions, which was positive ahead of Quali. We used the session to complete some further tests to increase our understanding of the tyres on a wet track and we also continued to show the good pace we have here this weekend. Heading into Quali, we decided to use a slightly different tyre plan with each driver. We wanted Yuki to get the highest possible starting position, so we gave him an additional set of Softs, whereas for Pierre we aimed to optimise his race strategy by using just the Mediums in Q2. Pierre managed to maximise every lap and had a fantastic Saturday afternoon, it’s a shame to be so close to P4 but the improvements we’ve made overnight to minimise the gap to Leclerc have worked really well. Likewise, Yuki has really made a step up this weekend and it’s great to see him back in Q3. The whole team has done some great work so far to have both cars starting in the top 10 tomorrow.”