The race was a bit lonely at times but it wasn’t boring as I had Charles in sight which was good motivation to keep trying to match his lap times. You have to keep pushing yourself even if there aren’t cars that you are directly fighting. I always want to see how fast we can go and push as much as possible. In the second stint, we were looking quite good but with six or seven laps to go I ran out of rear grip and I couldn’t really rely on the rear tyres anymore. I think it took a bit too much out of my tyres trying to keep up with Charles early in the race but I’m pleased to be in front of one Ferrari and finish fourth on a track that doesn’t really suit us. The target is always to win but it was not possible here today and I got the most out of the package. We have made a small step this weekend but we still need to work on all elements to fight for victories.

It was a long, difficult day and I’m disappointed, especially being here in France. From qualifying, I have struggled for grip and it was the same in the race. At the moment I don’t have the answer but I’m sure we will analyse everything to understand exactly why we lacked pace. I tried to do everything I could inside the cockpit but I could not push the car as I was sliding a lot. I have never really felt the car like this and with Austria next, we will have to quickly work hard with the guys to come back and put everything together for the next race. Honda are pushing hard and for sure they are developing so this is a positive.

It was a good drive by Max again and splitting the Ferraris was the maximum we could do today. With the heat, the tyres were always going to make for a bit of a marginal one stop race, so Max managed the situation very well to come home in P4, his fifth fourth position of the year. For Pierre, his first stint on the soft tyre was pretty good and he held P8 with relative ease, managing to go longer than anyone expected. The mechanics completed an incredibly fast pit stop which got him back out ahead of Daniel who was trying to get the undercut. Unfortunately, on the hard tyre Pierre just didn’t have any pace and slipped down the order. Finishing P11 is frustrating as we are outside the points, so we will check everything on his car to ensure there are no hidden issues.