Race - 70th anniversary GP 2020 - Team quotes

Haas F1

Haas F1 Team driver Romain Grosjean registered P16 while Kevin Magnussen was unable to finish the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, held at Silverstone, Great Britain.

Grosjean started P13 on Pirelli’s P Zero Yellow medium tires but on a typically feisty first lap relinquished positions, occupying P16, though rose up to P12 as his first stint unfolded. Grosjean was one of the last to pit, taking on the White hard tires on lap 17 of 52, before making a second stop on lap 39, again fitting the hard compound. Grosjean managed that tire through to the checkered flag to classify P16.

Magnussen lined up P17 on the medium tires and rose four positions on the opening lap to P13 before heading to the pit lane on lap nine for hard tires. Magnussen continued his race and came in once more on lap 21 for more hard tires, though was compromised after incurring a five-second time penalty while battling Nicholas Latifi. Magnussen returned to the pit lane on lap 45 to retire his VF-20 on safety grounds amid worsening vibrations from the tires.

The result of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix leaves Haas F1 Team ninth in the Constructors’ Championship.

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen claimed victory for the first time in the 2020 season with an aggressive two-stop strategy, with Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas second and third respectively.

Haas F1 Team will be back in action for the Spanish Grand Prix, to be held at the Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya, from August 14 to 16.

Romain Grosjean

“The start, for me, was an issue – I don’t know what I did wrong, we need to look at everything. After that I felt I had some good pace, but obviously being in traffic I was losing so much front air. Going into the high-speed stuff, I couldn’t pass the guys. I asked to go on a one-stop strategy, which was ‘Plan B’, but we were just too short of making it. But I still tried to go long on the hard tires, I was working to look after them. I was doing as much as I could. We were expecting front wear, but we got rear blisters. I guess that was the same story for everyone. It was windy out there, it was inconsistent because of the gusts, but I can push the car, I can drive it – our lap times were good. We need to work now on cooling down the rear tires when they get too hot. Our results don’t show much, but for us the pace wasn’t bad. I know where we can improve.”

Kevin Magnussen

“The car just hasn’t performed this weekend as we know it can. We know it can perform, especially on a Sunday in race conditions. It just hasn’t happened this weekend. We had the crash last Sunday, and I think the parts that we put on as replacements, the floor and so on – they’re old parts, I can’t really say what else it could be. In my mind that has to be it as the car can be a lot better than this. It simply hasn’t worked this weekend and that’s unfortunate. I had a great start again, so I’ll take that away as a positive and try and continue to keep doing that. We know in normal circumstances the car is more competitive in the race than it is in qualifying. We need to keep getting those good starts and fight in those positions. Our job is to keep fighting.”

Günther Steiner

“It wasn’t a good afternoon. We tried again with our strategy to do different things, but it didn’t work out. We had to retire Kevin (Magnussen) at the end of the race as there were vibrations and we were not sure anymore how badly they’d affect the suspension. Romain (Grosjean), at some stage, we though we could get through with a one-stop. We weren’t sure and we didn’t want to take a risk as obviously to get into the points is very difficult anyway. So, there was no point to risk anything. We are happy to be leaving Silverstone, as nice as it was here with the weather and the sunshine, but we want to move on to the next race.”

AlphaTauri

Daniil Kvyat

“I’m very satisfied today, I felt like it was a mega race. As a team we did a great job, we were able to squeeze everything out of the car and I think today’s result was the maximum on the table. We took every opportunity that came our way and, unlike last week, we were able to capitalize on them. I generally feel quite strong on Sundays, but we definitely need to put it together on Saturdays, as starting the race from a better position would make things much easier to regularly fight for points. However, starting from P16 and finishing tenth to score one point makes us happy today.”

Pierre Gasly

“I had a good start and also felt quite comfortable with the tyres on the first stint, so I was a bit surprised when I was called in for the first pit stop earlier than we had planned before the race. I think we tried to cover Albon but actually, that wasn’t really our race. Once back on track, we found ourselves in traffic and I had to push more than I would have liked on the tyres to make up a few positions. This caused massive blistering after a few laps, so from there on the race was pretty much a nightmare. I’m quite disappointed because I think there was something more to achieve today. We need to review what we could have done better strategy-wise and get back into the points in Barcelona.”

Jody Egginton (Technical Director)

“Today we had the cars and the drivers to score points on both sides of the garage and, although we have managed to achieve this with Dany, unfortunately, we have not executed the best race for Pierre. This has compromised his race and cost him points, which is, of course, not only disappointing for the team but also Pierre. He has shown good and consistent performances here over the last two events, but we have just not provided him with the best strategy to deliver his best race today.”

Franz Tost (Team Principal)

“First of all, congratulations to Aston Martin Red Bull Racing for Max’s first win of the season, he drove an incredible race, well done to the team. As for us, Pierre started from P7, he had a good start and in the first few laps, he defended his position well showing good pace. However, we clearly made a mistake strategy-wise, as we called him in too early for his first pit stop. With the second set of base tyres, he quickly started to suffer from blistering on the rear so it was difficult for him to catch up, which meant we had to call him in again. His last stint was quite long and he did what he could, but there were no points for him today. As for Daniil, he started from 16th position and made a good start to come back 14th after the first lap. He drove a very consistent race with good lap times whilst also taking care of the tyres. He made his first pitstop on lap 18 and took a second set of the base tyre, he was quite fast and was able to gain a few positions until we pitted him again for the Prime tyre on lap 33. After a very good race, he was able to finish in the points with a well-deserved P10.”

Alfa Romeo

It was a valiant effort, one that could have brought home a reward on another day, but, this Sunday, it was not meant to be. The team gave everything and put up a combative display on a hot British summer day, but in the end all we had to show for it were a P15 and a P17.

The race had started in a positive fashion, with Antonio Giovinazzi producing yet another rocket start to leap four places into P15. Kimi Räikkönen, starting on hard tyres and targeting a one-stop race, emerged over the race distance, eventually dispatching two Haas and two Williams cars during the pit window and settling down in pursuit of the midfield pack. Both cars showed pace, something that seemed to be lacking on Saturday but is never in short supply on Sunday.

Unfortunately, in a race that claimed a single retirement – that of Kevin Magnussen, when the Dane was propping up the field – and without any Safety Car or VSC to shake up the strategy, there wasn’t enough to make further inroads into the field.

We leave Silverstone after two events with the same points tally and in the same position – P8 – in the championship. We leave with work to do, but united in our pushing for that gap to be bridged. It’s a long season, a relentless one – and we’re not giving up the fight.

Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal

“Starting from the back, we knew we would have our work cut out today and our final positions reflect this. On such a race of low attrition and without massive shake-ups, P15 and P17, ahead of our most direct rivals in the standings, is pretty much all we could achieve. The team performed well and executed a clean race, but we have a lot of work still ahead of us before we can be where we want to be. We need to improve our qualifying pace to be able to start further up the grid: on Sunday we seem to have a good turn of speed and we can keep up the pace with all the others, but we can’t really get anything out of it if we’re starting that far back.”

Kimi Räikkönen

“I am not happy to be out of the points, of course, even though our pace was not too bad. We did what we could but from P20 we could only make it up to 15th, so we are still missing something, especially on Saturday, to be in the fight for the top ten. We thought a one-stop was possible since yesterday so we tried: the tyres actually lasted well, I still had pretty good grip but had an awful lot of vibration and I had to slow down to avoid something breaking. In the end we leave with nothing, so we will need to come up with a better performance if we want to be in the fight for points.”

Antonio Giovinazzi

“It wasn’t the easiest of days: we tried our best, we chose to split the strategies to give ourselves a few more chances but in the end it was not enough to get points. Our race pace was once again better than what we showed on Saturday, so we can hope to make a step forward if we improve our performance in qualifying. We need to keep positive and work hard, as a team, to improve: it’s not realistic to expect many things changing in a couple of days, but at least we are going to a new venue and we can hope it suits us a bit better than Silverstone.”

Renault F1

Renault DP World F1 Team collected four points from a strategy-dominated Emirates 70th Anniversary Grand Prix with Esteban Ocon rising six places to finish eighth place at Silverstone. Daniel Ricciardo suffered a spin on lap 31 and finished outside the points in fourteenth.

Both drivers made good getaways off the line with Esteban gaining two places from fourteenth to twelfth and Daniel holding onto sixth after starting fifth at the end of the first lap.

Strategy was always going to be the key factor in the race with softer tyre compounds on offer compared to last weekend’s race at the same circuit.

Daniel pitted on lap 14 for Mediums on a projected two-stop with Esteban pitting on lap 22 for Hards on his bold one-stop effort.

Daniel was struggling on his Mediums and pitted on lap 26 for Hards. With a handful of cars jostling for position, Daniel spun on lap 31 at Turn 4, which more or less put paid to any hopes of scoring points.

Esteban, meanwhile, lapped strongly on Hard tyres in eighth place and was able to comfortably manage the gap to the cars behind. He crossed the line a solid eighth place.

Daniel Ricciardo

“Today was just one of those days where things got progressively worse and worse. It was going okay at the beginning, maintaining sixth and hanging on pace-wise to the cars ahead. We pitted for another Medium and I was struggling to hold onto them. We had to pit for the Hard and then it got messy at Turn 3 and I lost the rear defending from Carlos [Sainz] and had the spin. The race was done then. We have to accept it, take it on the chin and go again in Barcelona. It’s a frustrating one today, but there are lots of positives from the two weeks at Silverstone and we can draw on that looking forward.”

Esteban Ocon

“That was definitely a very good Sunday for us. We made a solid start, managed the tyres well, received good communication from the team and it was a great pit-stop from the mechanics. It looked to be a very tough race in terms of tyres, especially on an aggressive strategy, but we managed to get that sorted and, in the end, we had a lot of pace. We just kept the tyres alive as best we could and managed to keep cars behind, so we’re very happy with the result. I don’t think we could have done much more from fourteenth on the grid. Our target is to qualify better – we have the pace for that – and then we can really fight for more points.”

Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal

“Mixed feelings after today with one car in the top ten and the other outside the points. Given Esteban’s starting position, his race should be praised, gaining six places in a race like today in a very competitive field is quite something. He, and the team, made the one-stop work. It was perfectly executed by him, the pit-wall and the pit crew. His progression in the race certainly contrasts with Daniel who was starting from fifth on the grid. His plan was for a two-stop. His first stint was strong, and we pitted him at the right time to avoid traffic when he exited. His second stint, though, was not competitive at all and we had to call him for an early stop, which compromised the rest of his race. He had a fantastic Saturday – outright fifth on pure pace – and also a good race last weekend. From his starting position today, we were clearly aiming for a better result. We need to assess that second stint and take that on board for upcoming races. Barcelona will undoubtedly see a repeat of hot conditions with similar high energy on the tyres from the high-speed corners. We’ve made a positive step in competitiveness in qualifying. We must confirm it next weekend and get on top of this counter-performance on the Medium compound. We must be able to do better even with tricky tyre selection.”

McLaren

Lando Norris

“A tough race! I went forward one position, which I guess is the main thing, but it was tough. We really struggled with tyres, which we knew were going to be an issue coming into the race, but we struggled a lot more than we were expecting – or I was expecting – and that made it a lot more difficult for me. All of the cars ahead, as you could see from qualifying, were quicker than us. I think probably a lot of people were in the same boat as us, it was just very tricky to control.”

Carlos Sainz

“A disappointing day for all of us. We managed to get a good start and after a very strong and long first stint we were in a good spot. Unfortunately, it looks like we had a gun failure in the pit-stop, which undid all the work done before the stop. It looks like we could’ve been on for some points today with the tyre strategy we had and with how we managed the race, but again I missed out on a good result for reasons beyond my control. We were unfortunate, but at the same time we need to keep digging and keep pushing because today is definitely another disappointing day for me personally, and for everyone in the team. We go again next weekend at my home race, so I hope we can recover there.”

Andreas Seidl - Team Principal

“This was a tough Sunday. We had expected a challenging race after having struggled for pace all weekend in the hot ambient conditions. Finishing P9 with Lando was the best we could do with the performance of the car. Carlos was unfortunate to lose the opportunity to join his team-mate in the points, after an equipment failure during his pit-stop. Both drivers gave it their all on track; my thanks to them and the entire team for the commitment and hard work they have put in across these two weeks at Silverstone. We will reset tomorrow and try to find a better level of performance for Barcelona.”

Racing Point

Lance Stroll

“I had a good start to the race and made up some places off the line, which put both of our cars into a great position early in the race. It was fun to have a battle with Nico and I managed to get him around the outside of Turn 6, but I locked up a little bit, and he was able to get by again. We then settled into P4 and P5, but it was clear that Leclerc was able to make a one-stop strategy work and the Red Bulls were very quick today. We’ve banked some good points with a solid strategy. We always want more, though, so we’ll go away and look into all the different strategies used today and learn from it. Nico did another good job, and it’s a strong result for the team.”

Nico Hülkenberg

“I’m happy to have scored points for the team. P7 is a good result, especially when you haven’t raced for nine months. It wasn’t an easy race, and it was tough physically, but first of all, it was important that I made a good start and got through the first lap because once the race settled down, I could use my experience of managing tyres and driving these types of Formula 1 cars. I was quite relieved after I got through the first few corners! In the second stint, it was tricky to manage the tyres. Unfortunately, we had to pit again and move onto a three-stop strategy because there were some vibrations, and we needed to make sure I could make it to the finish.”

Otmar Szafnauer, CEO & Team Principal

“Given our starting positions, we were hoping for a bit more today, but as the strategies played out I think we can be satisfied with sixth and seventh places. Lance and Nico drove clean and tidy races, and we had solid pace. It was important to bank a couple of good results and that’s exactly what we did – coming away with 14 points. We chose to play it safe and pit Nico a third time when his tyres picked up a severe vibration. I think it was a sensible decision and I’m pleased he could still score good points after stepping into the car only last week.”

Williams

— George Russell finished 18th and Nicholas Latifi 19th in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix
— George started the race 15th, and Nicholas 18th, both on the medium Pirelli tyre
— George stopped three times pitting on laps 8 and 24 for the hard Pirelli tyre, and then a final stop on lap 39 for the medium
— Nicholas also made three pitstops, stopping for the hard Pirelli tyre on laps 9 and 26, and later onto the medium on lap 46

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance

It was a difficult day with tyre management dominating most of the afternoon. Rear tyre blistering caused a lot of vibration, which disturbed the drivers quite a lot and effected their visibility. We opted to make a third stop with both cars, and this was costly in our race with the cars around us. We need to go through the data and review the state of the tyres after each stint to see if the third stop was necessary and how we will manage the tyres in a similar situation in the future. If we can understand this then we make better use of the natural race pace of the car, which was definitely better this weekend even though it didn’t show in the final race result.

It has been an interesting experience to have back-to-back races at such an awesome circuit and to get the opportunity to do so with different tyre combinations. However, without the fans here the atmosphere is just not the same and we look forward to coming back next year with a full crowd.

We fly to Spain in a few days and we must learn quickly from today and regroup ready to better exploit the car pace in Barcelona.

George Russell

It was a very difficult race. We made a really poor getaway and lost a couple of positions. It was difficult for everybody, but that’s how it is in these tricky races sometimes. We have a lot to understand and review, it just wasn’t our day. It’s been two very different weekends at Silverstone. We need to understand why and what’s changed between these two weekends and how that will help us moving forward. Nevertheless, it has been a good two weeks. Our qualifying pace is strong, so we just need to keep working on our Sunday pace.

Nicholas Latifi

It was a race that you had to adapt on the fly based on the situation and the strategy. The car was feeling great, even better than last weekend and it is the most confidence I have had behind the wheel in a race so far. I think the finishing position is not where we deserve to be, we came into some tyre issues with our rear left, which forced us into a third stop. I think we were just unlucky with the track position and being stuck behind some cars. I’m a bit disappointed, but the positive is that the pace is there.

Red Bull

MAX VERSTAPPEN

“It’s a great day and I’m very happy with the result as we did everything really well as a Team. The race showed we had the right strategy after our decision to qualify on the hard tyre and I’m pleased it paid off. I think the length and pace of our first stint was the key to being competitive as the mediums don’t last that long, so starting on the hard was definitely the right call. We can see the car works well on softer compounds, especially in the race, and it looks after its tyres. When you are able to overtake and pull away from a Mercedes it is really satisfying. Of course, I hope this will happen a lot more throughout the season and we’ll keep pushing them hard even though they have been the dominant team up until now. We’ll keep pushing, we have a really good Team spirit and I love that we never give up and do take risks. We will enjoy today because everyone deserves it after all the hard work, before focusing our attention on next week’s race in Barcelona.”

ALEX ALBON

“I am happy with today’s race and the car was unbelievable. At the beginning of the race it was tricky to overtake with the DRS train but once we had clear air we had a really good chance to get through the field. I was a bit surprised by the balance and race pace today, it was so good, so we need to go away and understand why. It shows we have a lot of potential in the car, it’s just hard to unlock it sometimes, but we are good in these conditions so now we know to find out why. It was a good finish to get fifth and hopefully we can now bring some more performance to next week’s race.”

CHRISTIAN HORNER, Team Principal

“Today is an amazing day for the Team with Max putting in a dominant performance in the race. After taking a risk in qualifying yesterday and electing to start on the hard tyre, Max made it pay dividends with great race pace in the first stint. To our surprise and encouragement, when Mercedes pitted for new tyres we still had better pace on our used hard set. We then switched our strategy to go onto the medium once we got a pit stop clear of Mercedes and re-emerged just behind Bottas who Max re-passed within a couple of corners. Max then covered Bottas off by going onto his remaining hard tyre to the end of the race by which point he was fully in control to score his ninth victory. Alex also put in another very strong race today with some great passes, particularly around the outside of Copse as he progressed through the field decisively to finish a very competitive fifth place. First and fifth today is great constructors points and moves Max up to second in the Drivers’ Championship. This victory is thanks to a monumental Team effort from everyone trackside, in the factory and also Honda. We’re making great strides and days like today show we’re going in the right direction and now we need to harness this potential moving forwards. Now we look ahead to the next race in Barcelona and let’s hope it’s a hot one!”

Mercedes

Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team sign off from Silverstone with a double-podium finish

— Lewis made two late passes to finish P2, with Valtteri completing the podium in P3
— Lewis recorded the 155th podium finish of his career, to move equal with Michael Schumacher for the all-time podium record
— Lewis (107 points) leads the Drivers’ Championship by 30 points from Verstappen (77 points), with Valtteri in P3 (73 points)
— Mercedes (180 points) leads Red Bull Racing (113 points) by 67 points in the Constructors’ Championship

Lewis Hamilton

It was a really challenging race out there today. Fair play to Max on the win, Red Bull didn’t seem to have the same tyre issues we encountered. I’m just grateful that we managed to bring it home in P2 and score some good points. We didn’t expect to struggle with the blistering to the extent we experienced it. The first stint was difficult, in the second stint I was managing the tyres like you cannot believe. I was doing everything I could to nurse the tyres, but it made no difference to the blistering. I was pushing so hard in those final laps to pass Charles and Valtteri that it felt like I was racing with half a tyre at the end. I don’t know if anyone else struggled with the blistering the same way we did, so we’ll have to see what happened today, but I know this team will get on top of it.

Valtteri Bottas

That was a frustrating race today. It’s never great to start from pole and finish P3. I think we were pretty much on the backfoot from the moment I lost track position to Max. We potentially could have gone longer in the second stint, the way Lewis did, to be able to push more towards the end of the race on fresher tyres. I tried to keep up with Max, but as soon as I started to push in the final stint the tyres just fell apart. We really struggled with the blistering today; as soon as you have blisters, you lose the grip and the performance, and it becomes very tough. It seems like the other teams, particularly Red Bull, didn’t have the same problem, so we’ll have to look into that and try and get to the bottom of it. There’s a lot to learn for us today, but as always we’ll move on and try to come back stronger.

Toto Wolff

Congratulations to Max and Red Bull for their first race of the season. For us, it’s been a difficult day in the office. We knew that in certain conditions we weren’t as competitive as we would like to be and that caught us out today. It’s a combination of hotter conditions, a high-downforce car, softer compounds and higher tyre pressures that meant that we didn’t have the fastest car today and we were blistering our tyres far more than the others. We have a handful of days to find out what exactly caused our issues today, come up with solutions, test them on Friday in Barcelona and then hopefully have a better race on Sunday. It will be challenging, but we’ve had these days in the past and came out stronger and I am really looking forward to Barcelona. These days where we lose are the days where we learn the most.

Andrew Shovlin

Well done to Max and Red Bull on the win. We couldn’t really compete with them today and were in damage limitation mode from fairly early in the race to make sure we didn’t slip further back than second and third. We’ve obviously got work to do before Barcelona to understand our performance today, we were clearly more prone to blistering than our opposition and just about every car out there looked to be in better shape. However, our bad days have always resulted in our biggest steps of learning and we’ll be getting stuck into that challenge immediately. The forecast for Barcelona looks like it will be even hotter than here so we don’t have long to understand these issues.

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc and Scuderia Ferrari took an important fourth place in the Formula 1 70th Anniversary Grand Prix held today at Silverstone. The result was down to a bravura performance from Charles, who had started from eighth on the grid, combined with the right strategy from the team, opting for a one stop in a race in which tyre management was key. Sebastian Vettel’s Sunday was definitely more complicated: he started eleventh and right on the opening lap he spun at the first corner. After that, he fought back to finish twelfth, two places off the points.

Start. The start was one to forget, with Charles dropping two places behind Alex Albon in the Red Bull and Lando Norris in the McLaren. Sebastian unfortunately lost control of the SF1000 while fighting through turn 1 with Albon and had to start all over again from the back of the pack. This weekend, Pirelli had brought a softer step of tyres as their three dry weather compounds and so, as early as lap 6, the pit stops began, with those drivers who had started on the Softs, which they had run in Q2. Charles on the Medium and Sebastian on the Hard, were thus able to move up the order.

Middle of the race. Leclerc was one of the last Medium tyre runners to pit on lap 19, rejoining on the Hards. Vettel came in three laps later and by half-distance, Charles was seventh and Seb 13th. At this point, after Daniel Ricciardo pitted the Renault, Charles had a clear track ahead of him and could manage his pace and look after the tyres. Sebastian found himself in the middle of a train of cars and so the team brought him in on lap 33, which allowed him to get ahead of Carlos Sainz in the McLaren. As for Charles, he made up two more places when Nico Hulkenberg and Lance Stroll in the Racing Points made a second stop. Leclerc thus found himself fourth with a lead of around 12 seconds over the German and it was now clear he was going to the flag with a single stop.

Final part. With 11 laps to go, leader Lewis Hamilton made his second stop, rejoining behind Charles, who was third behind Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas. On new tyres, the Englishman easily closed on and passed Leclerc, so that the Ferrari man was back in fourth. In the closing laps, Charles managed his lead, first over Stroll and then Albon, who was on new tyres and brought home a fourth place finish. At the moment, in a race with no dramatic changes, that was the best that could be achieved. Sebastian finished in 12th place.

Back on track in a few days. After two races on consecutive weekends in the UK, the Formula 1 championship is still in full flow. The final race of this second triple header of the season, the Spanish Grand Prix, takes place next weekend at Barcelona. The race starts on Sunday 16 August at 15.10 CET.

Charles Leclerc

“Today feels like a victory, which is not something we like to say when we finish fourth. If you would have told me this morning that I could finish the race in my starting position in 8th, I would have signed immediately.

In terms of strategy, the team had some concerns about the one-stop approach, looking at what happened to some of the tyres last week. But sometimes, as a driver, you feel something in the car that you can’t see in the data. So I pushed to go for one stop because I believed I could make it work. I am glad that we went for it and that it worked out well.
Last year, I knew that my weakest point was tyre management. I worked very hard to improve there, and to see the result on track is a huge satisfaction for me.

I am interested in analysing the data from today and understanding where we found our pace. I was quite impressed and it was a positive surprise. In tough times like these, we have to take any opportunity we can get, and we did that today, so I am very happy with the result.”

Sebastian Vettel

“Today I tried my best. Unfortunately I had a spin in turn 1 and I’m not sure what happened there. I thought I got hit, but actually it was a kerb, and I suddenly lost the car. However, I also feel we could have done a better job on the strategy. After my first stop I was in traffic and for this reason we had to bring forward the second stop. In the end I had to drive on the Medium tyres for 20 laps, which I feel was not the best choice we could have made today. Of course the race was difficult overall and it’s a pity we couldn’t get back to where we wanted to be.”

Mattia Binotto Team Principal

“It was definitely a better day than yesterday. On the Hard tyre in the race, we rediscovered a level of performance that at least allowed us to stay ahead of our current rivals. Given the positions of our drivers at the end of the first lap – Charles tenth and Sebastian last – we tried to make the best strategy choices to bring home as many points as possible for the team. After that we made up six places with Charles and eight with Sebastian, so I don’t think we could have done better in a race in which there were hardly any retirements or safety car periods. Charles finished in the same excellent position as last weekend and Sebastian’s position was the result of his first lap incident. We must do all we can to ensure that he too can make the most of his talent and use all the car’s potential.

Now we face another test at the very demanding Montmelo track, where we had struggled during winter testing. The aim is still the same: to improve our performance both in qualifying and the race to bring home as many points as possible with both drivers.”