I didn’t really enjoy myself out there today: it was a fairly lonely race for most of it, but at least it gave me a chance to look after my tyres. I think we got the maximum result we could hope for because we didn’t have the pace to achieve more. We tried an aggressive strategy, with a very early second stop, to try and cover Verstappen, but it turned out to be too early and in the end we had a lot of pressure from Massa. It was very important to keep in front of him and bring home as many points as we possibly could. We always knew it would be a challenging race and it’s shown that we need to keep working hard. I think we can fight back strongly in Singapore because it’s a very different kind of circuit compared to Monza and we’ve performed well on street circuits so far this year.

My initial start off the line was okay, but Max [Verstappen] in front of me really bogged down so I had to react and turn around him. That really hurt my traction and I lost all the drive going forward, which is why I lost a few positions. Later in the lap, I was side-by-side through turn four with Felipe [Massa] and was on the outside line for turn five. Felipe jumped over the kerb, gave me a little hit, and pushed me wide on the exit, allowing Fernando [Alonso] to get ahead. So it was not a great first lap. Then, in the first stint, it wasn’t easy to overtake and I was stuck behind Fernando until the first pit stop. The second half of the race was actually quite lonely for me, but the damage was done by losing so much ground on lap one. So I’m slightly disappointed with the outcome because I believed we would be more competitive here. We need to learn the lessons, understand where we can improve and come out much stronger in Singapore.

Overall I think getting two cars in the points means we’ve come away with a solid result. Both drivers have been chasing the set-up to try and find the sweet spot all weekend, so to come away with five points is a good return for all the team’s efforts. As is often the case in Monza, the outcome of lap one tends to dictate your finishing position and while Checo moved up, Nico was caught up in the rough and tumble of the midfield. The battle for fourth in the championship is likely to ebb and flow over the course of the season, but I’m optimistic that some of the upcoming events will play to our strengths more than Monza.