Gäste Forum » intention on his side. Overall in qualifying, we did

LOS ANGELES -- When Carlos Ruiz cracked the Dodgers first postseason pinch-hit homer in Los Angeles since a guy named Kirk Gibson did it a generation ago, the hallowed stadium shook with the possibilities.In that moment, Dodgers fans figured their team was ready to end the October doldrums currently bedeviling a franchise that has won four straight NL West titles, but just one playoff series.Instead, the Dodgers never scored again in their 8-3 loss to the Washington Nationals on Monday, dropping them into a 2-1 deficit in the best-of-five Division Series.Reliable starter Kenta Maeda flopped in his rookie seasons biggest moment, and vaunted closer Kenley Jansen was tagged for four more runs. Aside from Ruizs two-run shot, the Dodgers couldnt slug with the Nationals potent lineup. Los Angeles lost for the 12th time in 18 playoff games since beating Atlanta in the 2013 NLDS.Starting with Game 4 on Tuesday at Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers will need back-to-back wins on both sides of the continent to avoid a fourth straight postseason disappointment.Weve missed the big hit for the last two games, but it happens, said rookie shortstop Corey Seager, who hit an RBI double in the first inning. Weve got to move on and find that big hit.Nobody managed two hits for the Dodgers, who are on the brink of losing their third consecutive division series and their fourth straight playoff series. They havent been to the World Series since 1988, when Gibson hit his iconic homer off Oaklands Dennis Eckersley to propel Los Angeles toward its most recent championship.The Nationals havent won a playoff series since they were the 1981 Montreal Expos, but they might have found an opponent with even more deep-seated postseason problems.Were not afraid of this, first-year Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. Its been a long season. Its been a lot of highs and lows. But I know that theres no quit in our guys.The Dodgers never recovered after Washington chased Maeda with four hits and four runs in the third inning. Ruizs homer trimmed the Dodgers deficit to 4-3 in the fifth, but the Nationals bullpen continued its utter mastery over Los Angeles with 4 2/3 scoreless innings of two-hit ball.The collapse was psychologically capped when Jansen entered a one-run game and gave up four more, retiring just one of his five batters in the ninth. Jansen yielded Jayson Werths massive homer and got chased when Josh Reddick botched Ryan Zimmermans catchable fly to right, scoring two more runs.We cant lose another one, so weve just got to compete, Jansen said in a subdued clubhouse. We still have a shot to win two, and why not?MAEDA MISSESMaeda was the unexpected stalwart this season in the Dodgers patchwork rotation, which lost Clayton Kershaw to injuries and Zack Greinke to Arizonas $206.5 million largesse.Maeda led Los Angeles with 16 victories, 175 2/3 innings, 179 strikeouts and a career-high 32 starts while the Dodgers gave extra rest to the 28-year-old rookie to get close to his usual weeklong gaps between starts.He was the only starter to remain in the injury-plagued rotation all season, but perhaps the longest and most draining year of his baseball career finally caught up to him: Maeda needed 28 pitches just to escape the first inning on a brilliantly sunny afternoon, fanning Zimmerman with the bases loaded to end it.His real trouble came in the third when Trea Turner led off with a single and scored on Jayson Werths double. Bryce Harper delivered a one-out RBI single, and Rendon brought him home with his first career postseason homer.Roberts pulled Maeda for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the third.I was very regretful that it didnt turn out to be a good outing, Maeda said. I understand it was a very big situation. I went in there as a must-win situation. I wasnt nervous at all, but I just didnt have my day.LEFTY RIGHTSRoberts attempted to counteract the Dodgers struggles against left-handed pitching by inserting Yasiel Puig, Joc Pederson and Charlie Culberson, but the trio went 1 for 10 with Pedersons fifth-inning single before Ruizs homer.HOME COOKEDThe Dodgers won 53 home games this season, tied for the second-most in the majors. Theyve lost four of their six home playoff games over the past three division series, however.UP NEXTThe teams left the park not knowing when Game 4 will start on Tuesday, thanks to televisions control of the schedule. Both teams also were initially cagey about their starting pitchers. The Dodgers must choose between Kershaw on short rest or youngster Julio Urias (5-2, 3.39 ERA). The Nationals are likely to use Joe Ross (7-5, 3.43) or Reynaldo Lopez (5-3, 4.91), keeping 20-game winner Max Scherzer in reserve for a Game 5 or the NLCS.The game will start at 5:05 p.m. EDT. The teams had to wait until San Franciscos 13-inning win over the Cubs ended just before 3 a.m. EDT to find out when first pitch would be -- Los Angeles and Washington would have begun at 8:08 p.m. EDT if Chicago had won.Bulls Jerseys 2020 . After Martin Skrtel put the Reds in front from close range at Stamford Bridge after only four minutes, Hazard hit back in the 17th with a superb strike. Etoo gave Jose Mourinhos team a decisive lead from Oscars back pass in the 34th. Bulls Jerseys 2019 . "We have always prided ourselves on the way we play defence. Having two big pieces back is going to be a key for us moving forward for years to come," said Knighthawks head coach Mike Hasen. https://www.cheapbulls.com/ . LOUIS -- Heading into the final stretch of the season, the issues for the Chicago Bears banged-up defence only seem to be getting worse. Custom Chicago Bulls Jerseys . The Vancouver coach and an announced sellout crowd of 18,910 watched in dismay as the Canucks lost 7-4 to the New York Islanders on Monday night by squandering a 3-0 lead in the third period. Chicago Bulls Pro Shop . General manager Jarmo Kekalainen told Aaron Portzline of The Columbus Dispatch on Friday that he wants to see Gaboriks contributions go beyond the scoresheet before considering a long-term deal for the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent.ESPN rounds up all the reaction from up and down the Spa-Francorchamps paddock following qualifying for the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix.MercedesNico Rosberg (1st):?We had a difficult weekend until Qualifying. Especially, this morning we were thinking that we were off the pace a bit. So I was really happy to grab pole today. The Red Bulls were quickest on the long runs on Friday, so we need to be at our best to beat them. The tyres are a big challenge in the heat here this weekend. The degradation is very high. My disadvantage at the start is that I have a harder tyre with lower grip, so Max should get off the line quicker on the Supersoft. I reckon that, with some luck and a maybe a Safety Car, Lewis can climb up to the top very quickly, so he cant be ruled out either. In any case, Im pleased with my qualifying and looking forward to tomorrow. It will be an exciting and intense race.Lewis Hamilton (22nd):?Firstly, the team have done an incredible job -- the guys and girls back at Brixworth building the engines and then everyone here whove been kitting and fitting them -- so a huge thank you to them. To bring a new engine here, take it out after FP1, put another new one in for FP2, then do the same again before FP3 was just an unbelievable job. I have a massive 55 place grid penalty today -- but I also now have three new engines in the pool for the season, which is positive. In terms of today, it was definitely a weird qualifying session for me. There was no point in showing my pace. It was all about race preparation.The key for me is making sure I come out of tomorrow having lost the fewest points possible -- and that meant having as many fresh sets of tyres available as possible and making sure the car was set up well. I cant say right now what the plan is - the team will know already whats best and well discuss that later. Were not easily the quickest here. Were all going to have massive degradation and looking after the tyres will be a struggle for everyone. Its going to be far from an easy, breezy day but where I can just pick people off. There will be lots of pit stops and who knows what else. Im going to have to battle my way through the traffic -- but Ill give it my best as always and see where I end up.Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport:?We had completely opposite outcomes from todays session with Nico taking a great pole but Lewis doing the minimum he needed to do in order to be able to start the race from last place after his engine penalty. For Nico, it wasnt an easy job. We have struggled with the balance of the car this weekend but he managed to secure the strategic advantage of making it through Q2 on the soft tyre In Q3, we were overheating the super soft compound a lot but Nico managed to do enough to squeeze out the performance ahead of Verstappen. So a perfect job from his side. Lewis did the perfect job as well in totally different circumstances. He has taken a very positive approach to the challenge this weekend and has been very clear about focusing all his practice work on the race.He did the minimum today but this leaves him fresh tyres and the most strategic options for the race, which was the right choice. Finally, I must pay tribute to the fantastic work from the team in Brixworth and the team in the garage to implement our strategy of stockpiling the power units. So far, they have delivered an enormous workload without mistakes and in a perfect way. They are working under a lot of pressure but it shows the quality of our team that we have been able to deliver a smooth weekend so far. But the most important bit is now ahead of us. The tyres will be difficult to manage in the high temperatures tomorrow and I think we can expect a lot of action on the track and in the pits. Its now up to us to make the most of our opportunities to score the best possible result.Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical):?Not quite the normal qualifying routine with Lewis grid penalties to consider. We decided to do a single short run with him during Q1 to get him safely within the 107% limit and then park the car to save the maximum number of tyre sets for tomorrow, giving him plenty of strategic options for the race. That left our bid for pole down to Nico. We could see from practice that it was going to be very tight between ourselves, Red Bull, Ferrari and Force India.We also had the challenge of getting through Q2 on the soft tyre, as we dont consider the SuperSoft to be a good race tyre here this weekend. Nico produced a fantastic lap in Q2 to go fastest on the Soft and, although Q3 was tighter than we had hoped after the Q2 times with Nico only finding a tenth and a half between the compounds, he delivered a strong lap to take pole. Tomorrow is going to be a very tough race -- particularly managing the endurance of the tyres -- so we can expect an exciting afternoon once again at this spectacular circuit.FerrariKimi Raikkonen (3rd): So far it has been a decent weekend, the car was behaving well today and we had the speed. My first run in Q3 was very good, but I went sideways and off track. The second attempt was even better, but in the last chicane I had some slight understeer and lost a few tenths compared to my Q2 sector. Today I felt we had the chance to get pole position, so Im a bit disappointed, my laptime was not good enough. On a positive side, we are very close compared to the last couple of races. We decided to start the race with Soft tires, if you can make them work it will make a massive difference, well see how the race will pan out but I think our plan will be fine. Well do our best, of course the hot conditions wont be easy for the tires, but its the same for everybody. Hopefully well be up there fighting also tomorrow.Sebastian Vettel (4th):?Im sure we made a step forward from yesterday! If you look at the gaps between the cars, they are very close, so tomorrow it should be a good race. Obviously you always want a little bit more, the exit of the last corner in particular wasnt very strong, so I cant be happy with that. The rest of the lap was ok, we had a much better balance than on Friday, but its important to be fast in all three sectors to be up there. We decided to start the race on the Soft tires, we believe that this is the best strategy, well see tomorrow. Anything can happen, there could even be some rain, in Spa you never know.WilliamsValtteri Bottas (8th):?Obviously it was a bit of a problematic qualifying session for us. Considering the software issues we had, I think we performed like we should have. Its a shame that we had the issues because it meant we couldnt get a top six position. At the end of the day, the race is tomorrow and thats what counts. The car felt better today than yesterday so weve already made progress. Our long runs in practice looked good in terms of the race pace, so I think we can have a strong race tomorrow, even though we didnt get the perfect result out of today.Felipe Massa (10th):?I had a software issue in Q1 which caused a misfire so I couldnt put a lap together. That really didnt help my qualifying, because I only had one set of supersofts left for Q3. I gave it everything on my final lap, but I locked the front into turn one and lost a lot of time, so Im not happy with that. If I had two sets of tyres in Q3 it would have helped me a lot, but that didnt happen so we lost a few places. We will see what we can do tomorrow though. I was happy with the car, the balance and the laptimes in qualifying.Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering:?Qualifying was disappointing for us. We had a software issue with the power unit which meant that we werent able to run qualifying mode, so we lost lap time there. Without that we would have been around fifth position. It unfortunately put us on the back foot in Q1, after we discovered it on our first run and had to react accordingly. Most of our efforts were then focused on trying to resolve the issue rather than making our car go quicker, so its somewhat ruined our qualifying.Apart from that, the cars were reasonably well balanced. Going into the session we knew it was going to be tight with Force India, but we had a little bit of a margin on them so its a shame not to be ahead. Weve all got to pick ourselves up now, accept that these things are part of motor racing, and look forward to tomorrow. The long runs we were doing both yesterday and this morning were very encouraging. We just need to make sure we get everything right tomorrow and outscore those around us in the championship.Red BullMax Verstappen (2nd):?Its a great feeling. As soon as I crossed the line in Q3 on my fastest lap, I could see the fans going really wild so I knew it was a good lap. Its been already an amazing weekend. To see so many fans around the track and feel their support is incredible and Ive been enjoying the whole week a lot, so to be second on the grid is fantastic. It would have been very difficult to get pole position. The chance is always there if you are that close and in sector two we were very strong, but we were missing some top speed. Tomorrow will be very interesting with the different strategies between us, Mercedes and Ferrari so I think itll be a good fight. Hopefully the supersofts will give me a bit more grip in the first few laps and then for sure I will drop off a bit but thats my strategy. I will probably have to pit a bit earlier but we have to wait and see how the race goes. Big thanks to the team for such a quick turnaround and working so hard on getting me out on time in Qualifying.Daniel Ricciardo (5th):?In Q3 I would have loved to have got a bit more out of it, but Im not too disappointed looking at the race tomorrow. Im really pleased I got through on the softs in Q2, that was our objective, whether it works tomorrow or not lets see, but thats what I wanted to get out of it. Id be less happy with P5 on some tracks, but Im not disappointed for two reasons: you can overtake here and with the tyres weve got this weekend, you can do a lot during the race tomorrow. If you can have a faster car or if you can be a bit more intelligent, then it can pay off. In Q2 my objective was to start on the softs. It was a nervous few minutes but we did it. Im happy; its close enough to the front and Im on the softs, sure a few cars in front have them too, but its going to be a good race. Two years ago I started in P5 and won! Max did really well to get on the front row -- but we have a split strategy for tomorrow, we talked about it before qualifying and he wanted to start the race on supersofts and I wanted to start on softs, so well see what happens tomorrow.Christian Horner, Team Principal: A fantastic performance by Max, in what is theoretically his home race, to qualify on the front row here within 15 hundredths of Mercedes, and with Daniel in fifth place on the grid at a track where you can overtake, its going to be a fascinating race. That together with the different strategies the two cars will be running tomorrow, starting on different tyres, it should prove to be an exciting grand prix. Its all going to be about tyre degradation and managing the tyres particularly in these unusually hot conditions at Spa.Force IndiaSergio Perez (6th):?I think we are in a really strong position for the race and I am really looking forward to tomorrow. We got as much as we could out of the session: I made a small mistake at the end of my lap and I could have been about a tenth faster, but thats all we lost. Some of the cars ahead of me are starting on the soft tyre compound, which should be a big advantage for them, but we are still in good shape to get a strong result. There will be a variety of strategies at play and I hope we can move forward, enjoy the battles and bring home some points. The hot weather is making it really difficult for everyone -- you reach a point where you cant go any further with thee tyres.dddddddddddd Strategy and making the right calls at the right time will be very important: you dont want to be on the wrong tyres at the start of such a long lap because its going to cost you.Nico Hulkenberg (7th):?Im reasonably satisfied with our performance today. Q1 and Q2 went to plan, but I had an issue with the power unit during Q3 and that cost me some time down the straights and proved quite costly. Weve got to start the race on the supersoft tyres, but I think we made the right decision to use them in Q2 because it would have been difficult to make Q3 on the softs. Its certainly going to be a challenging race if the weather stays this warm because Spa is already a demanding track on tyres in cool conditions. We need to explore our options tonight and make the right decisions tomorrow.Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal:?It was satisfying to see our strong form in free practice carried into qualifying with both Sergio and Nico delivering some excellent laps. Nico had a sensor issue, which cost him a few tenths on his runs in Q3, but overall we cant be disappointed with sixth and seventh on the grid. Tomorrows race will be dictated by tyre strategy so we need to wait and see if the high temperatures continue for the race. Weve shown that we are competitive and we are well placed to pick up some good points tomorrow.RenaultKevin Magnussen (12th):?Today we found a lot more pace than expected and thats a nice surprise, obviously. My lap wasnt even perfect; I really locked up in Turn 1 and lost a lot of time. I thought it was over, but pushed for the rest of the lap and got a decent time in. Even though we are P12, I think there was a little bit more in it and thats encouraging for the race tomorrow.Jolyon Palmer (14th):?I am pretty happy with that performance. Its the second race running that Ive been in Q2, but we can be especially pleased with this one as yesterday was tough and we turned it around. Having two in a row shows that Hockenheim wasnt a one-off and we are making genuine progress. There are a lot of unknowns for the race tomorrow as the temperatures are sky-high and tyre degradation is worse than expected, but we have some advantages. Everyone in the top ten is starting on used tyres whereas we have a new set in hand. Im now really looking forward to the race and trying to crack into the top ten if we can.Toro RossoCarlos Sainz (15th):?Its being a very tough weekend for us, maybe even a bit more than expected, and its disappointing not to be able to fight to get into Q3. On one side Im happy because I know Ive extracted the maximum out of the car today, but on the other side Im sad to see us sitting in P15, a second off Q3. Its not good enough. Theres a lot of analysis going on right now inside the team to see where we are losing so much performance -- we know the reason for half of it, its due to the 2015 power unit, but we need to understand why we are not performing as expected in Sector 2. Weve been slow all weekend so tomorrows race will be difficult. Im confident that a right strategy will get us close to the top ten, but it wont be easy to finish in the points. Having said that, we will give it our all and fight hard to finish as high up as possible.Daniil Kvyat (19th):?Even if we are not where we would like to be, I think it wasnt a bad qualifying session for me and Im happy with my laps and my progress from Friday to today. My lap was pretty much the maximum of what I couldve done today. We must accept that the car is where it is right now and, of course, its difficult for us but we just have to work with what weve got and try to move forward. I think that for the rest of the season this is what its going to be like and we will have to keep fighting, theres no other choice. Tomorrow we will do our race and see where we end up - I dont want to do any predictions, all I know is that it will be tricky but we will do our best with a package that isnt competitive at this track.James Key, Technical Director: We had the feeling qualifying would be a difficult session for us, weve been struggling a bit this weekend. Somethings not working very well for us right now and we need to look into that further in a lot of detail. We know that straight-line performance is important here and this is becoming quite a big weakness for us now -- we knew this would happen, but nonetheless theres more to it than that I think. We need to understand the situation a bit better going into the next races, we introduced a lot of new parts on the car throughout July and, although we have not seen any obvious problems with any of them, we have had two unexpectedly difficult races on a row now. Sadly, Daniil didnt get through to Q2 as he lost a bit of time in the last corner -- its a shame, as he was actually up on his teammate at that point, so that was a bit unfortunate.But thats life and we have to move on. Regarding Carlos, his Q2 lap wasnt so easy, as he got disrupted by another car a little bit and didnt quite get the Sector 2 together... So, all in all, it was a tough session for the team and the drivers. The thing to do now is understand why we seem to be struggling a bit at the moment, find out if its something on the car, the high track temperatures weve had recently or something else, because clearly we are feeling a bit out of position at the moment and we need to come back from that. Shorter term, we need to focus on tomorrows race and see what we can do. We think theres still opportunities here and even if we knew that Spa and Monza wouldnt be strong events for us, we still have to do our best and thats what we will do tomorrow.SauberFelipe Nasr (17th):?I was close to making it into Q2. I put in a decent lap at the end of Q1, but I just missed some lap time in sector three, as I struggled with the grip, especially on the rear, in the last corner. On the first try my lap time was deleted because I went on the inside kerb exceeding the track limits in Turn 4. On my second and last try I was able to improve, but it was not enough for Q2. It will be a long race tomorrow; there is lot that can happen.Marcus Ericsson (20th):?It was a disappointing qualifying for me. We already had issues with the power unit in the morning. We managed to fix it for the end of FP3, so I was at least able to go out for a couple of laps. Then in qualifying I had a lack of power again, and, therefore, I lost lap time, especially on the straights. We need to investigate and sort these issues out for tomorrow.McLarenTo followManorPascal Wehrlein (16th):?Im very happy that we made it through to Q2, of course; Q1 was incredible for us with P9. But unfortunately we had no new Supersoft tyres for Q2, so its a bit of shame, and I had to do my lap on used tyres. Q1 felt so good with new tyres, so you can see what was possible today; that last run was not our true pace. So it was a bit of a shame, but that decision has to be made much earlier in the year. Were actually in a very good position for tomorrow, in terms of our position on the grid and also with the tyres we have available for the race. Degradation will be high at this track, so well be okay I think. And, yes, Ive been very happy with the weekend so far. Its all gone pretty much to plan and Im looking forward to the race.Esteban Ocon (18th):?Ive been pretty happy with my pace generally but its not easy to start your F1 career more than halfway through the season. I need more time in the car and with the Supersoft tyre and even managing the traffic; thats quite a challenge too with all the cars slowing down after their laps. It takes more experience than I have in three practice sessions to really extract the maximum out of everything. Thats something to look forward to with each new race though, improving step by step. I was very quick on the Soft tyre, so although Im a little disappointed today, Im also excited about what is yet to come.Tomorrow I will be the happiest guy on the grid. Its my first race and I cant wait for the whole experience of preparing for the race, the grid, lights out, pit stops - everything. Again, the race will bring its own challenges, as its my first one, but Im really happy with the work weve done in practice. Im happy on the Medium and Soft tyre, and with the long run pace, so Im just going to stay focused on the goal, which is to have a strong clean race, get a good result for the team, learn a lot and have fun with it too.Dave Ryan, Racing Director:?Funny, isnt it? Everyone has worked so hard to get to the point where we can get through to Q2 on pure pace, yet while we have achieved this with Pascals fantastic performance today, there is also a sense of frustration. Perhaps if we had believed in ourselves a bit more we might have managed our tyre usage slightly differently, such that we could have competed in Q2 with new tyres rather than reuse the same sets from Q1. However, that was how we chose to play it and as a result were looking very good for the race tomorrow, which is when it really counts. So, brilliant job Pascal and the team.Thats what were here for, so lets keep it going! Esteban? Well, he has been absolutely mega! Yes, its his first ever Grand Prix, but thats nothing compared to the fact that yesterday morning, at 1000hrs and the start of FP1, he drove our race car for the very first time and yet, here he is, 18th on the grid, having done a fantastic job all weekend. Im sure hes incredibly excited about tomorrows race, as we all are. His preparation has been perfect and his race pace is where it needs to be, so hes ready for it and I am sure he will deliver. Congratulations to everyone in the garage and back at Banbury. Today is a big milestone but theres still a long way to go, so lets keep pushing!HaasRomain Grosjean (11th):?The car was fine in qualifying. We made a good step before the summer break, so Im more happy with the car. There are still a few things we can improve but, generally, its not a bad place to be after qualifying. For the race, I dont think well be as challenged as some of the other teams. Hopefully, we can have a good, aggressive strategy and try to make it work to get some points.Esteban Gutierrez (13th, will start 18th):?It was a really good effort from the team. Weve been struggling with the car setup, but managed to find the best balance. In qualifying, it felt like a step forward considering the high track temperatures, which is making things a little complicated with the tires. In FP3 there was a miscommunication that cost us a five-place grid penalty, which is obviously very painful, but we will try to put that aside. Ill start the race and give everything Ive got to recover the lost positions and Ill be fighting all the way to get into the top-10.Guenther Steiner, Team Principal:?We had a good FP3 session, except for a communication issue with Esteban as he wasnt made aware that Wehrlein was coming. He received a five-place grid penalty which is very unfair as there was no intention on his side. Overall in qualifying, we did the best we could. We finished 11th and 13th. Eleventh for the fifth time this year. I think we are getting very consistent. The team works very well together, so the day will come when we get into Q3.PirelliPaul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport Director:?The high track temperatures have increased the wear and degradation rates on a circuit that is already very demanding on tyres. Were expecting two or three pit stops per car, depending on degradation rates, and weve seen the tyre strategy start already with a number of drivers completing Q2 using the soft compound. With some drivers -- notably Lewis Hamilton -- starting out of position as well, due to g