I had a good start to the race and made up some places off the line, which put both of our cars into a great position early in the race. It was fun to have a battle with Nico and I managed to get him around the outside of Turn 6, but I locked up a little bit, and he was able to get by again. We then settled into P4 and P5, but it was clear that Leclerc was able to make a one-stop strategy work and the Red Bulls were very quick today. We’ve banked some good points with a solid strategy. We always want more, though, so we’ll go away and look into all the different strategies used today and learn from it. Nico did another good job, and it’s a strong result for the team.

I’m happy to have scored points for the team. P7 is a good result, especially when you haven’t raced for nine months. It wasn’t an easy race, and it was tough physically, but first of all, it was important that I made a good start and got through the first lap because once the race settled down, I could use my experience of managing tyres and driving these types of Formula 1 cars. I was quite relieved after I got through the first few corners! In the second stint, it was tricky to manage the tyres. Unfortunately, we had to pit again and move onto a three-stop strategy because there were some vibrations, and we needed to make sure I could make it to the finish.

Given our starting positions, we were hoping for a bit more today, but as the strategies played out I think we can be satisfied with sixth and seventh places. Lance and Nico drove clean and tidy races, and we had solid pace. It was important to bank a couple of good results and that’s exactly what we did – coming away with 14 points. We chose to play it safe and pit Nico a third time when his tyres picked up a severe vibration. I think it was a sensible decision and I’m pleased he could still score good points after stepping into the car only last week.