Frédéric Vasseur: “A great satisfaction”

Are you relieved after a bit of a downturn over the last few weekends?

We had two or three races where, for various and varied reasons, things did not suit us. There, I think we had a very good weekend. We didn't get off to the best start on Friday morning and we were able to reverse the trend throughout the weekend to get back into the game.

Even though we were far from McLaren and Renault in qualifying, the pace in the race was really there. It’s a great satisfaction, especially since we have some developments, mainly aero, arriving in the upcoming rounds.

Your drivers experienced different trajectories in the race. Was this inevitable given their position on the grid and their different tires at the start?

Kimi started with the hard tires so the strategy was to stay alive to attack with the mediums at the end. The pace in Hard was already good, which is very encouraging for the future. For Antonio (Giovinazzi, Editor's note), it was necessarily more complicated starting with the softs.

He starts to degrade the tires very badly then loses positions. You're not putting yourself in an easy situation to deal with. Rock (gasly, on the same strategy, Editor's note) also suffered. The main thing is that Antonio took a step forward by once again showing that he had the pace in qualifying.

What is your opinion on the double penalty of Daniel Ricciardo, in particular the sanction which concerns his overtaking on Kimi?

If the commissioners believe that it is necessary to investigate, that is their job. Personally, I haven't seen anything that shocked me more than that. They don't just have to put rails everywhere, that will solve the problem.