Qualifying report
Formula 1 Italian GP
Italian GP: Top 10 quotes after qualifying
Lewis Hamilton claims all-time pole record with the 69th pole of his career
Edited: Sep 5, 2017, 11:39 AM
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la#DriverChassisEngineTimeGapkm/h 1 44 
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Mercedes 1'35.554 218.251 “It's very hard to find the words to explain how I feel, I'm trying to figure it all out. It probably won't sink in for a long time. It was an epic day, I feel truly blessed. The Red Bulls really made me work hard for the pole today, which I'm grateful for. The weather has obviously been incredibly tricky for us all. What a day to come here in this beautiful country with the English weather and to be massively challenged. It was very difficult to see out there, and very easy to make mistakes - as always in the rain. The second to last lap was ok at the beginning, but then I backed out of it, hoping that I'd get one more lap. There was a lot of pressure for that last lap - there could have been a red flag, there could have been a yellow flag. There was a lot of risk, but I gave it everything. A big thank you to my team for making it all possible, the guys here, the guys back at the factory for continuing to support me. We've got a lot of the sponsors here from Mercedes-Benz and Petronas who have been sponsoring and supporting me for a long, long time, so I'm really grateful for that.” 2 18 
Lance Stroll Williams Mercedes 1'37.032 1.478 214.927 Not available yet 3 31 
Esteban Ocon Force India Mercedes 1'37.719 2.165 213.416 “A great qualifying session. I’m really happy for everybody in the team. We knew there was an opportunity for us this afternoon and I’m so pleased we could take it. I always enjoy driving in the wet and the conditions today were really challenging. The car felt great; there was a really nice balance and I have to say a big thank you to the team for all their hard work. We will need to fight hard tomorrow because there are quick cars all around us, but I believe we can score some really big points and I’ll be aiming for the podium.” 4 77 
Valtteri Bottas Mercedes Mercedes 1'37.833 2.279 213.167 “Today was a tough day. In the end, I just couldn't get the Wet tyre to work. We stopped for a new set, tried to go for one more lap, but I just didn't find any grip. Initially, in some parts of the qualifying we got everything working well, but it was really on a knife edge with the temperatures of the tyres. With more rain, I could not get the tyres hot enough. However, with the grid penalties for the Red Bulls, I'll be starting fourth, which is not too bad. And it is for sure good to be ahead of the Ferraris with both cars. We have a long race ahead of us tomorrow; luckily it's supposed to be dry. ” 5 7 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari Ferrari 1'37.987 2.433 212.832 “Today in wet conditions it felt quite tricky all the time. We struggled to get the tires working, in most places we had no grip and it was very slippery. It was difficult to go through the corners and be able to push and go fast. The starting position is not ideal but we’ll start in a bit better position thanks to penalties for the other cars. Now we have to wait and see how the weather will turn out. I’m sure that in the dry conditions it will be a lot different, our car should be working quite well.” 6 5 
Sebastian Vettel Ferrari Ferrari 1'38.064 2.510 212.665 “This isn’t where we wanted to be. Obviously, we didn’t have enough speed, but tomorrow I think it should be fun. It will be a long race on a track where you can overtake, so anything can happen. I don’t know what caused today’s result, but it was not ideal and we didn’t have the grip. Now we’ll try to understand what happened and then we’ll focus on the race. I don’t think anybody was expecting so much rain. Obviously, we are all disappointed, but there’s no point in complaining now. I know that we have a strong car, we have a new chance and anything can happen. We could have done better today and we tried to do it but it didn’t work. I am confident tomorrow will be better.” 7 19 
Felipe Massa Williams Mercedes 1'38.251 2.697 212.260 Not available yet 8 2 
Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren Honda 1'39.157 3.603 210.321 “For us to be in Q3 on a circuit like Monza means it’s been a pretty good afternoon, especially as it wasn’t so easy out there and there were pretty difficult conditions. I’m happy with my performance today. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to have a proper go in Q3 – we had a loss of engine power so I had to abandon my quicker lap, and we don’t know what the problem is at the moment. It’s a shame because I really think we could have pushed our way further up. We could have taken more time to find the limit and taken a few more risks, but we didn’t get that chance. With penalties we’ll probably start P8, which is inside the top 10, and we’ve been running strong in the dry. I think tomorrow should be dry, so we’ll need a good start and to keep in touch with the group in front. There’s some quick cars in front and some quick cars behind, but once we’re in position hopefully we can stay there. Tomorrow is when the points are distributed, and I’m optimistic in the race we can have a good go.” 9 11 
Sergio Perez Force India Mercedes 1'37.582 2.028 213.715 “It’s been a very long afternoon and I am happy the fans got a good show in the end after waiting in the rain for so long. The conditions on track were difficult; there was a lot of standing water and the cars were aquaplaning a lot, so I think Charlie [Whiting] did the right thing by postponing the session. The conditions were changing all the time and it was very important to be on the right tyres at the right moment. In Q2, we took the decision to change from wets to inters and I only had two laps to try and make it happen. In the end, I missed out by two thousandths: it’s not ideal, but it was the best we could do today. It was not a perfect lap – I went a bit too wide at Ascari and I got very close to Ricciardo ahead of me, and that compromised me a little. These small margins were enough to miss out on the top ten. We’ll be moving up on the grid with a few penalties and I hope to make up some more positions tomorrow.” 10 26 
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso Renault 1'38.245 2.691 212.273 “It was definitely not easy out there today! We had a few balance issues and I was fighting to stay on track almost at every corner; a lot of wheel spin everywhere too! At times it was also difficult to decide what tyre to go out on – sometimes the track was for extremes, sometimes for inters… But I’m happy with the decisions taken today and, all in all, it was a decent session from my side, I did my best. For tomorrow, it’s not going to be an easy race, especially if it’s dry – this is not a track that suits us. Having said that, we will of course try our best and see where we end up.”
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