“The smell of fuel, driving on the limit on the edge of sliding, it just gives you a lot of adrenaline.”
“If you start doubting yourself like that, thinking, ‘Am I good enough?’ – maybe there is a reason you’re thinking that.”
“This is what I have always done in my life, just racing and driving cars and go-karts fast.”
“If you are a bit weak in your head, maybe you can train your mind, but it will never be your strong point.”
“Of course my dad went to Formula One, so I think that my dad is the better driver of the two. But I think, for a girl, my mom was not too bad, of course.”
“Of course I think everybody has moments in their careers when they’re frustrated, or you’re not happy with the current situation.”
“I don’t need people shouting at me to tell me what I did wrong.”
“As a driver, it is important to focus on yourself and believe in yourself, and there shouldn’t be a reason why, when you are in F1 and there is more attention, you change your approach.”
“I think you can improve on everything; you’re never perfect.”
“The biggest critic I have in my life is my dad, so everything else is just a breeze; it doesn’t really matter to me.”
“Mistakes happen, and they happen to the best of us.”
“I just want to do the best I can every time.”
“My first memory of motor racing – I think it was just attending a go kart race.”
“My dad always told me you have to be as quick as you can straight away out of the box. Some people say, ‘Feel your way into it; build it up.’ No. My dad would say, ‘Straight away, you have to be there.’ And I think that helps to warm up your tyres and brakes to be on it a bit more from lap one.”
“You have to be patient: trust the team, that they can deliver a good job.”
“My career is more important than girls.”
“Ever since I was 7 years old, Formula 1 has been my career goal, so this opportunity is truly a dream come true.”
“For me, it doesn’t matter if you are fighting a world champion or not.”
“People always think they know better. In football, everybody thinks they can be head coach and do it better. It’s the same in F1: they always know better, even if they have no experience of it.”
“I have good people around me, so I always have advice. A lot of people can talk to me, but it’s me, of course, who still has to take that to the track and to perform.”
“You always have to believe in yourself, and I had that from karting.”
“I tell my engineers that they should not overload me with information.”
“We are getting way too much info in the cockpit. Sometimes I switch off the display in my car!”
“When I was very little, my dad had his own go kart team as well while he was still in F1, so I always joined and riding through the paddock on my bicycle.”
“I think it is very important to not be too much on social media. You have a lot of positive comments but also negative ones, and at the end of the day, that shouldn’t affect you, but it is much more important not to read it so you just don’t know.”
“I can’t thank all the people at Scuderia Toro Rosso enough for all their hard work.”
“Of course there will be difficult times, and there will be more in the future, but I know what I have to do in the car.”
“I get really tired of all the comments saying I should change my approach.”
“It’s just racing. Sometimes you have difficult moments, and then you try to work hard, and you keep working hard, and you overcome the situation. It’s as simple as that.”
“I want to win because I am the fastest out there instead, not by luck; then it means a lot more to you.”
“The world championship is what I am here for.”
“If you haven’t really raced a lot in lower categories, and you make the jump to Formula One, you have to learn in Formula One, and a lot more people are watching.”
“I never even think of the mental side of things because I never had any issues.”
“I just enjoy it and drive as fast I can. But so many people think your psychology is such a massive thing. For me, it’s not necessary.”
“Many people ask, ‘What do you need mentally to succeed in F1?’ I say, ‘What do you mean mentally?’”
“It is not because others tell me I have to change my driving style that I will change.”
“Of course I am doing a good job, but you can always improve, and I just leave it up to people outside, around me or whatever, to judge on that.”
“Overtaking is one thing. That is an art. But defending as well. You should be able to defend your position.”
“It changes from track-to-track, but when you are behind someone, you know after a few laps where they are weaker and stronger around the lap. You try to position yourself in the best possible way to attack them at a point they don’t expect or at the point that they are just not as strong as you. That’s how you try to get past.”
“Some drivers are like that. When they get a bit angry, they can perform better.”
“I’m normally not really an angry person. Maybe some other people have a different opinion.”
“I want to rely on my gut feeling. Isn’t that what made great race drivers in the end?”
“At the end of the day, driving on the limit, sometimes over it to achieve the best out of it, especially at such high speeds… mistakes are easily done.”
“Sometimes I watch a football match, and I think I know better, but at the end of the day, we don’t. So I think people need to appreciate more what we are trying to achieve in the car.”
“In general, the spotlight has been on me.”
“It is very unfair, and on social media you have all these keyboard warriors who just type something, and they never say it to my face. That’s very weak I find.”
“I just want to be myself. You learn from yourself, and that doesn’t mean you have to drive slower; it actually means you have to drive faster, but maybe with a little bit in control, and that’s what I learned.”
“To just slow yourself down, just to not do anything and drive around – I’m not like that. I’m not here to fill up the field.”
“I’ve always been good at realising what went wrong and stuff, and I was always being able to look at the positives from it.”
“My ultimate dream is just to become world champion, and not only once. So that’s my dream, and it doesn’t matter with which team it is.”
“To be honest, I never compare myself with the rookies.”
“You always try to fight for yourself, isn’t it? You try to do the best possible job.”
“I really want to thank Red Bull Racing and Dr. Helmut Marko for the confidence they have in me.”
“The thing is, all the time I press my radio button, it is broadcast, and sometimes it sounds a bit arrogant – especially the ‘I’m not here to finish fourth’ – and that is just what comes up in my mind.”
“I am not there to finish fourth at the end of the day. I am there to win as a racer, but on the radio, it sounds I am arrogant and not listening to the team, but it is not like that.”
“I think, in general, not only in Formula One but just in a lot of sports, when younger people come in and they do well, there’s always a bit of talk going on. I think that’s pretty normal.”
“To be honest, it doesn’t matter who is next to me in whatever team.”
“There is no such thing as a low risk lap in Monaco. It doesn’t exist if you want to be fast, because you have to be on the limit.”
“Preparation for Monaco is a little different: you definitely build up a little bit slower throughout the weekend and pace yourself. It’s important to find the limit carefully.”
“I’ve raced at the Hungaroring in Formula 3, and it’s a bit of a Mickey Mouse track.”
“I focus on myself, but all these stupid comments you read on social media and journalists, it’s really stupid.”
“It doesn’t matter as long as, at one point, I’m in a championship-winning car. I don’t care about my team-mate.”
“If you are not allowed to defend, what’s racing about, then?”
“In the end, I think in F1 it is very hard for a girl.”
“I was never Mad Max. I was just Max who was trying to get the best result for the team.”
“As a driver, I will always be the same guy.”
“I always try to get the best result out of it, I’m not there to just sit second or sit third. I’m a winner, and I want to win every single race, and I will always go for it.”
“Maybe I can drive until I’m 36 or 37. 40.”
“As racing drivers, you always have those moments that it gets a bit heated, but then you start from zero again.”
“I say what I think, and if somebody attacks me unfairly, I definitely tell them.”
“I grew up going to race rings, and I really enjoyed it.”
“That’s what I enjoy, always driving on the limit of what you can do.”
“Of course you learn from certain moments, and you always get more and more experience, so maybe in the future you will do some different things, but in general, the basics always stay the same.”
“I think it’s always better to be in an F1 car because, in general, the car behaves itself.”
“I have to say it was a very good start, a very good first season. I enjoyed it a lot, scored good points and gained a lot of experience.”
“I think if you show respect on the track to each other, and you do clean overtaking moves, then they get respect for you.”
“It is not only about just doing a fast lap. You also need to use your brains and be clever, and I think that is what makes you a complete driver at the end.”
“You always want to do better than last year.”
“Sometimes it’s better to come through from, say, last to eighth than staying eighth, and you’ve qualified eighth!”
“I did like history. I was always quite interested and got good grades as well.”
“I always wanted to be a racing driver. Even if it was not F1, it would be something else.”
“The only place that matters is first.”
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