Qualifying - Russian GP report: Red Bull Tag Heuer

DANIEL RICCIARDO

“We gained one position with Seb’s penalty so to start 5th is not bad and we are about a tenth off Felipe so it’s close. The track makes it hard to put a lap together, the grip comes and goes so it’s not easy to put all the sectors together but generally I’m happy. We are obviously a long way off the Mercedes but we expected that so if we can race the Williams tomorrow that would be good. We don’t have much of an advantage here because it’s a one stop, everyone is able to push on the tyres and it will be flat out for a majority of the race therefore we are not able to do much with strategy. If we finish in the top five, that would be a very good result for us. There is a lot of fan support here for Dany, which is really nice to see, the atmosphere is good.”

DANIIL KVYAT

"Our lap times during the whole session today were consistent which is good. I thought we could find something extra for Q3 but unfortunately we didn’t have time to do our warm up lap, so I had to go straight to the push lap with slightly cold tyres. That left us with understeer and costs us a couple of tenths. But I am generally happy with qualifying at this track which is challenging for us. The tyre life here is quite long and this will help Williams as they look strong on this track, we knew that would be the case and I don’t expect the situation to change too much in the race. This track is not the strongest for us but we will try and bring some points home."

CHRISTIAN HORNER

“This track is not the strongest for us so for Daniel to line up in what will be P5 and Dany in P8, both are respectable grid positions. It was all quite tight in the middle area of the top ten and I think both drivers extracted the maximum from the car. Hopefully we can look forward to a good race tomorrow and make progress from those grid positions.”