Daniil Kvyat (STR14-03, Car 26)
Third Practice Session – Best lap: 1:12.194, pos. 7^th, 27 laps
Qualifying – Best lap: (Q1) 1:11.602, (Q2) 1:11.412, (Q3) 1:11.271, pos. 8^th

Daniil Kvyat:

“I’m very satisfied with Qualifying today. I think it was great teamwork between my engineers and myself. We did a good job analysing where I felt uncomfortable on Thursday and they gave me exactly what I asked for, as soon as I get the setup I want I know I can deliver a good performance. That’s three Q3s in a row now, so I’m happy with how I’m performing – I hope we can do a good job tomorrow and score some points to capitalise on a good Qualifying.”

 

Alexander Albon (STR14-04, Car 23)
Third Practice Session – Best lap: 1:12.338, pos. 10^th, 32 laps
Qualifying – Best lap: (Q1) 1:12.007, (Q2) 1:11.429, (Q3) 1:11.653, pos. 10^th

Alex Albon:

“I’m happy to make it to my first Q3, although it wasn’t easy out there as I couldn’t find a good rhythm – it wasn’t as good as Thursday. I was on the back foot for most of the session trying to get the tyres to work. It was also a matter of getting confidence: you arrive at Turn 1, the tyres are really cold as you’ve spent Sector 3 going at pedestrian pace, and you get to the first corner not knowing exactly what’s going to happen! However, we can be happy with P10 in Monaco as it can always lead to something good.”

Jody Egginton (Technical Director):

“Overall, today has been pretty satisfactory. The drivers and the team have done a good job to extract performance from our cars resulting in a successful Qualifying and reasonable starting positions for tomorrow’s race. The setup changes made to Dany’s car since Thursday provided him with a more consistent package and, as a result, he has been able to extract more lap time, improve his consistency and we have been rewarded with Dany making to Q3 and qualifying P8. On the other side of the garage, Alex was not totally happy with his car’s balance during FP3, so further changes were made to address this during the morning session and also ahead of Qualifying, which had some effect, allowing Alex to also progress to Q3 and qualify P10. We are now fully focused on race preparations in order to take advantage of the good work done today. Our target is simply to finish the job and secure points with both cars.”

Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director):

“Today’s qualifying performance puts us in a strong position for tomorrow’s race. It was the first time this year that we have had all four of our cars in the top ten. Well done to all the drivers and to the teams for producing competitive cars. On the PU side, we found the right settings in terms of driveability, which is one of the most important requirements for this track. It will be a long race tomorrow and anything can happen over the 78 laps of this tight street circuit, therefore we must make sure we are ready to deal with any situation that might arise.”