Hamilton: “We didn’t expect it”

Max Verstappen (PBS/Red Bull Racing) – Vainqueur

“It’s a great, great pleasure to drive a car like this, and we were able to show it again today (Sunday). We saw a race with different strategies, and for most of the race we were on the right strategy. Winning here is incredible. I had the hardest tires at the start and it was necessary to manage this situation well and it was a bit tense. But it’s more difficult to pass when you’re outside so I was able to get by. It was a very good weekend for the team and for me. And I hope we will continue like this. »

Lewis Hamilton (GBR/Mercedes) – 2eme

“What a result for our team! We did not expect that. I really want to take my hat off to everyone at the factory. We are a little closer to Red Bull Racing. We will continue to chase them but it’s a great result for us and for George Russell too, who put in a superb performance. For the moment Red Bull Racing are going faster but we are working on it, we hope to catch up with them by the end of the year and if not this year, it will be next. »

George Russell (GBR/Mercedes) – 3eme

” I’m a little bit surprised. I thank the team who gave me a very good car today (Sunday). Starting twelfth and moving up to third place is really more than I could have imagined. The car definitely handles better. You enter lap times and you compare them to those of the drivers around you, the Ferraris and the Aston Martins in particular, and you see that you are getting faster and faster. Everyone is very happy with this podium. »

Sergio Pérez (MEX/Red Bull Racing) – 4eme

“The Mercedes were really fast, they had a good pace. It was therefore not easy to catch up with them, but at least we are limiting the damage following the day yesterday (Saturday). It was already complicated when I found myself behind Fernando Alonso, whose pace was already quite fast. I now have to start from scratch following these two complicated weekends. As we saw today (Sunday), our pace is much better in the race than in qualifying and we need to understand why. »

Carlos Sainz Jr (ESP/Ferrari) – 5th

“I lacked pace and we still have problems with tire degradation. This played on our weak points. We have evolutions here but we will still need time to understand them and especially how to improve things for the tires because it is really our most delicate point for the race pace. Second to fifth is not good for sure, but until we fix that we will lose places in the race. I’m disappointed not to give my fans a podium in Spain but I couldn’t do better. We have to maximize our parts, I’m sure they work because we were fast in qualifying. »

Fernando Alonso (ESP/Aston Martin) – 7eme

“It was a complicated race because we never had the rhythm. It wasn’t about strategy or soft or hard tyres, we weren’t fast on either compound. George Russell passed us very early and that changed our plans a bit because we had a lot of cars in front of us, a lot of traffic, which forced me to slow down a bit. We were able to hold the softs long enough and that at least allowed me to have some hard fresh ones for the end of the Grand Prix, which allowed us to move up to that seventh place. It was however impossible to compete with Mercedes and Ferrari and we have to understand why. I thought we would have more pace today (Sunday) and the Top 5 would be possible. We lost second place in the championship to Mercedes, but we took a few points from Ferrari. So there is still something positive to take away from the weekend, even if we have to analyze and understand why we lacked pace. »

Esteban Ocon (FRA/Alpine) – 8th

“I think it’s been a good weekend overall. It is sure that coming back from Monaco, having made Top 3, we can be a little disappointed, inevitably, to finish eighth. But we are still in the points, and that is very important. What is a little more difficult is the pace we have in qualifying and then after the loss of pace we have in the race. We had seen it a little bit on Friday during the second free practice session. So, we are in the right mix in qualifying but we still have to work to see where we can go a little more to find the rhythm in the race. But here we are, we’re scoring points, it’s been a solid weekend and we have to keep trying to find out why we’re lacking a bit of rhythm in the race. I think the changes worked, especially on Saturday. On Sunday, as I said, there is still a bit of work to do. But, overall, two very positive weeks, that’s what we’ll keep in mind. We score points twice, I score 19 points if I’m not mistaken in two races, so it’s huge. We can be proud of what we have done, we have to continue, it’s on the right track. »

Pierre Gasly (FRA/Alpine) – 10eme

“Obviously I try to take the rope at the first corner. In the end, in turn 2, I am on the outside. We are three abreast. There’s a car inside Sergio Pérez, he’s in the middle and I’m on the outside, so I knew I was going to get pushed. If I robbed… I tried to give them space. Unfortunately, I find myself putting a wheel in the gravel and losing four places as a result. It sure hurts to qualify fourth and have to start tenth with the penalties to find yourself fourteenth at the first corner, it’s clearly not the best position to be at the start of the race. From here, we are already ten or fifteen seconds behind the leading pack after five laps. It’s hard to come back up, we tried to do what we could. In the end, we finished tenth, we managed to pick up a point, but of course we clearly had to fight with the Astons today, less than ten seconds from us. It is sure that there is a taste of unfinished business in this race. »

Charles Leclerc (MCO/Ferrari) – 11eme

“Honestly, in terms of balance, it was fine, but we are not at all consistent. We put two sets of hard tires in the race. The first is a disaster and the second is pretty good. Afterwards, we go up on Pierre Gasly at the end, so we ride more or less in the same times as him, it’s quite complicated to get closer. But hey, the second set of hard tires was much better than the first, so you really have to understand because every time you’re a little surprised at what’s going on with the tyres. We never manage to put them in the right window. Or in any case, when it is done, it is not wanted. So that’s a real problem, that’s why there are huge gaps. Even in the same race, by putting on the same tire twice, you go from a rather good car to a completely different car. And that, I think, is linked to the way we manage these tyres. Honestly, it was a bit of a disaster weekend. Now we will go home, we will analyze what went wrong yesterday (Saturday) in qualifying, because that is what puts us in a delicate situation today (Sunday). But honestly, with the performance we have in the race and with… we’re really not consistent, so there’s really a lot of work to do. »

Sources: official Formula 1 interviews, Canal+, Autosport, Sky Sports