At the start it was pretty close, especially for Sergey, who was in front of me starting from the pitlane. It was a different experience! I think I was unlucky and our race could have been a lot better, as I pitted on lap 31, one lap before the safety car. This was after I did a good stint on the prime, so it is a bit of a shame as if I had done another lap I would probably have gained some time by stopping under the safety car and we could maybe have finished in the points. Anyway, that is luck in motorsport and it is a matter of hit or miss. The rest was okay and we were following the train today. At the end I could see some cars ahead of me not too far away, so that was good.

It was a very painful race. The first half didn’t look that bad. I think we had reasonable tyre management on the qualifying tyre. Still, it was lacking quite a lot of pace but at least it was all under control. Then, we did quite a late pitstop with the hope to have a good second stint that was shorter and quicker, but then we were facing quite a few blue flags and the safety cars made things difficult for the tyre. Afterwards, I was left with a harder compound whilst all the cars around me had a softer, warmer compound, it was just very painful to be there as a driver and to race it to the flag. All in all, very disappointing.

It was not a great situation to arrive at the British GP on race day with two cars starting from the pitlane. There are not many of us in the team that have started with one car in the pitlane, let alone two, so it was a new experience and involved some special logistics of its own, particularly to time the preparation of the launch. Both cars got away cleanly, emerging into the racing pack and settled down into a race which ran exactly according to the plan that we had set – Sergey on the shorter stint on the soft tyre, and Lance on a longer stint on the medium tyre. The plan was interrupted by the two safety cars but we chose to remain on plan so that the two cars could race each other according to their different strategies. During the second safety car, we gave Sergey the option to take another tyre set as he was complaining of tyre vibration but he chose to stay in the fight with Lance, however he ultimately lost the position in the restart. It was a good job by the team and the drivers to get two cars home, but once again, not in the positions that we would like.