It’s not often we get to drive on new tracks, or tracks that are new for most of us but already have a strong legacy behind them, so after my Le Mans experience it’s great to be staying in France and heading to Paul Ricard. Winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans still feels like a dream and it was an incredible week. It’s finally sinking in now and I’m already looking forward to getting back in my car and going racing again. I’ve never raced at Paul Ricard in Formula 1, but I drove there in testing a few years ago and I’ve seen the designs of the new circuit configurations. I think it looks like it has the potential to be a mega track, and going to a new venue always makes things exciting, as we’re all in the same position learning its characteristics from scratch. From what we do know, it’ll be a tough race for the cars and drivers, and a tricky technical challenge to set the cars up. It does look like there are a few overtaking opportunities though, which should hopefully provide some exciting racing. After a couple of disappointing weekends, I hope we can bounce back in France with a more positive result.

Although Formula 1 hasn’t visited Paul Ricard for a long time, I’m actually one of the only drivers on the current grid that has driven the track – I drove there during a Pirelli test in 2016, which was a really cool experience, and I also raced there in my Formula Renault days. It looks like a great track which has been very much modernised, and I think it’ll provide some great racing. It’s a technical circuit, with a mix of high-speed and low-speed sections, and some of the corners like Signes are extremely challenging and really good fun. There are also some areas where overtaking is definitely possible, so hopefully it should help to mix up the pack a little bit. There will be a lot of fans coming to Paul Ricard to experience this race for the first time, so there should be a great atmosphere all weekend. It’ll be great to visit a new city and see how our package performs on a new track – it’ll be unknown territory for all of us, but I’m looking forward to the challenge and hope we can put our last couple of results behind us. Congratulations to Fernando for his win at Le Mans – I watched the last few hours at home and was hoping nothing dramatic would happen right at the end. I know Fernando did a lot of preparation and it was a well-deserved victory for the whole team.

I’m both pleased and proud to be returning to the Circuit Paul Ricard as Formula 1 returns to host a grand prix for the first time there in almost thirty years. It’s definitely been a labour of love for all involved, and I’m very appreciative of the opportunity to have been part of the process to bring it back onto the calendar. I’m confident that the facilities will be viewed as among the best of all the circuits we visit, and the organisers should be very satisfied with what has been achieved to re-establish this circuit that holds so many great racing memories for a lot of people. It’s been a long process since the campaign first began, but a worthwhile one, and I think we have the potential for some great racing there next weekend. In addition, welcoming another grand prix to a European venue with such a rich heritage in Formula 1 as France is also very pleasing, and I hope it will prove to be another fantastic destination for fans to enjoy visiting. By design this circuit is no mean feat, and it’ll certainly be both a challenging and exhilarating track for the engineers and drivers to get their heads around. Our focus must first and foremost be on reliability after our recent spate of retirements. We’ve worked hard to understand our performance issues in Canada and hope that in France we can put in a more representative showing on track. Finally, on behalf of everyone at McLaren I’d like to offer huge congratulations to Fernando for his fantastic Le Mans win. He showed his talent and mental strength during what we know is an exceptionally tough race, and we were all cheering him on as he lifted the trophy. We know it’s been on his bucket list for a while now and it’s another incredible achievement to add to the record books.