It was a pretty demanding race I have to say. I didn’t get a fantastic start and I knew there was going to be trouble in turn one, which I at least managed to avoid. We had a close battle with Ericsson for much of the race and towards the end we were very close and pushing him all the way to the line, eventually ending up just 0.1s adrift. We are a little disappointed today, but we’ll regroup and focus on what we can do for Bahrain next weekend.

Unfortunately the situation with Maldonado was a consequence of what happened off the start, when Vergne hit me from behind and punctured my left rear tyre. Quite simply I could not avoid Maldonado; there was nothing I could do. We came in to change the tyres and to fit a new front wing but when I returned to the track the car was not easy to drive and we suspected a problem with the brakes. We could not continue to drive this way and had no choice but to retire. It was disappointing to end my race after 8 laps and this is not the reward the Team deserves after a week where we seemed to make good progress through the sessions.

It was a tough start to the race for the Team and the drivers due to the incredibly high temperatures on the grid. The actual starts didn’t work out too well, however both drivers started to try and battle their way back through on the first lap. Unfortunately for Jules, the puncture he got from Vergne caused his incident with Maldonado and he had to return to the pits to change tyres and fit a new front wing. From this point on Jules was not happy with the car and we suspected further damage beyond what was apparent at the stop. Sadly we had no alternative but to retire him due to accident damage, as I’m sure his car would have been just as reliable as Max’s. For Max, he was initially following the two Caterhams. In the second stint he didn’t quite have the pace to stay with Kobayashi but he continued to battle with Ericsson, trading positions between the stops. We were behind him in the last stint and although we were able to push him right up until the final corner, we didn’t quite make it past. Overall a disappointing race from a performance point of view, but the learnings from another complete process of racing the new powertrain will stand us in good stead as we switch focus to Bahrain and try to improve the performance again.