What the teams said – Qualifying at the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix

Mercedes

When Hamilton had to bolt on a second set of soft tyres in Q1, it looked like Mercedes might be struggling with respect to their rivals. But he managed to undo that damage by running a used set in Q2, and so still had two sets of shiny new tyres for Q3. Mercedes sent their drivers out late again as they did in Canada, but this time the wind didn’t wreck their last laps and both improved to snatch a place on the second row. Hamilton pipped his team mate by just 0.002s, at a track where he’s enjoyed plenty of success in the past.

READ MORE: Hamilton targets Norris and Verstappen on Barcelona race day after ‘huge steps’ put Mercedes back in the mix

Lewis Hamilton, 3rd, 1:11.701

“This is another encouraging result for us as a team. Everyone has been working so hard to bring updates and improvements to the car, making incremental gains and small steps over the season so far. We are starting to become more consistent too and that is huge for us. That is down to every member of the team putting in the extra hours and I want to say a big thank you to them. The car is getting more enjoyable to drive. Today, the gap was three tenths, but I think in reality it was less as we didn’t get everything out of the car on that last lap.

“I am going into tomorrow focused on trying to fight for the win. We are in a good starting spot with that long run down to turn one. Degradation will also play a key role tomorrow and I think our long runs in practice looked strong in that respect. I hope that translates into Sunday and we can have a good afternoon.”

George Russell, 4th, 1:11.703

“The car has been feeling great this weekend. Our pace was strong throughout practice, and we felt confident going into Qualifying. A second-row lock-out is a decent result but the gap to Norris and Verstappen was slightly bigger than we expected. Both mine and Lewis set good laps, but I don’t think either of us felt that we maximised them. Getting the tyres perfectly in the window around a challenging track like this is so difficult. I think those ahead managed to do that and maybe we didn’t today.

“On a circuit like this, the ultimate race pace of a car will always win out. I think our race pace looked good throughout the weekend so far and I hope we can fight for the podium and potentially victory. The recent steps we’ve taken with the car are clearly helping and we’re looking forward to building on that momentum.”

Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport

“P3 and P4 is a solid result. The car balance wasn’t quite as good as on Friday though. Added to that, both drivers felt that there was little more time left out there. The gap to pole position was slightly larger than we had envisaged throughout practice, therefore. That was a little frustrating, but it is positive that we were able to get ourselves ahead of the Ferraris.

“Our attention now turns to race day. Our long run pace looked solid throughout practice, but it was similar to others around us. Hopefully we can be in the mix though and take the fight to those ahead. It will be a race determined by that pace coupled with tyre degradation, so let’s see what we can do.”

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

“The car balance has been trickier than yesterday. At times, it looked like we might have had an opportunity to challenge for the front row. In Q3 though, the pace of Norris and Verstappen was just out of reach for us.

“The positive is that we have both cars at the sharp end of the field. That will create some opportunities in terms of strategy. The key thing tomorrow is going to be race pace and tyre degradation. We looked decent on the long run yesterday and we’ve done a bit of work on the setup overnight, so our aim is that we have made another step in the right direction. It is also encouraging that the hard work of everyone in the team is steadily moving us closer to the front, and hopefully we can make further steps in the next few races.”