It was an eventful evening in terms of performance. How satisfied were you with the car?
The car is good. It won the race. So yeah, as happy as can be.
You didn't seem happy after qualifying. Are you more happy after the race?
It's a different situation. I qualified 6th.e Saturday, which is frankly bad, so how could I be happy? It doesn't make sense. Of course, I'm a little happier to have made it back to the 3e place. I got off to a good start and the 2e This place was the best possible result today (Sunday), so we should have had it. But we didn't have it, I didn't have it, because of a few mistakes. So I have mixed feelings. I think the pace was good, the car is clearly amazing, as Oscar proved, but I made too many mistakes.
What exactly happened on the starting grid, and did you immediately know you were too far back?
No. I think at first I was too far behind, so I tried to move forward little by little... and I did the opposite. This is the first time in my life that this has happened to me. It shouldn't happen, but it did and I paid the price.
You had a great start after that and a very good first lap. What were your thoughts on the race at that point?
Third, I was quite happy. I saw that it would be difficult to overtake George (Russell. Ed.). They (The Mercedes. Ed.) weren't too bad this weekend, a tenth and a half off pole on Saturday, so clearly they're not in trouble. I didn't expect to overtake him easily... and in fact I didn't overtake him at all. I was happy with my good first lap, aggressive, attacking, as I should have been. But then I got the penalty and everything became more complicated. I came into the pits earlier than everyone else, I had to push harder to try to get the 5 seconds back and I barely managed.
But then I was on worse tires, much hotter, and I paid the price again. Every time I did something good, I made two mistakes behind. I constantly held myself back in my progress today. So I'm happy that the pace was there. It was difficult to overtake, the dirty air is just horrible. I'm happier with my pace today than yesterday (in qualifying. Ed.), but I still don't have the best feeling with the car at the moment.
Interview by Cyprien Juilhard
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