It’s with a bitter-sweet feeling that the team now returns to Maranello, even if it is clear the car package is
competitive, so that it can head to Budapest in the hope of turning things around in the Hungarian Grand
Prix next Sunday, prior to the usual fortnight-long summer break.
Carlos Sainz #55
It was a hard race today but I also enjoyed going through the field, making lots of overtakes. To make
places up with the Hards was tricky but as soon as I put the Mediums the pace improved a lot and I
managed to make good moves. I gave everything out there today and, even though we were a bit unlucky
with the pit stop and the penalty, we managed to fight at the front.
Like always, we will review everything these couple of days to see where we can improve and hopefully we
can bring home a better result before the summer break. A pity for Charles as he was doing a great race.
We’ll keep pushing.
Charles Leclerc #16
I’m very disappointed. This is not the outcome that I wanted today, as we had the pace to win. I made a
mistake and paid the price for it. Now I will head home to reset before the next race in Hungary, where I will
give it my all once again.
Mattia Binotto Team Principal & Managing Director
Although this result was far from the one we wanted, there are still some positives to take away from this
race. First of all, the F1-75 was very competitive, even on this difficult Paul Ricard track. There is no point
on dwelling on Charles’ mistake. These things can happen, even to great drivers like him and together, we
have already put it behind us. Carlos had a strong weekend, starting with qualifying, when he did what was
required of him for the team. In the race, he was patient in the early stages and then made up places lap
after lap, including some brilliant overtaking moves. Now we look ahead to Hungary where we want to fight
for the win once again.
Lewis Hamilton
What a great result, considering we have been so far off all weekend and that I missed FP1. I wasn’t
expecting to fight for second place or a podium, so this is a wonderful result for us. Our team has been
amazing when it comes to reliability and it shows that with dedication and focus, we can slowly make our
way up. We don’t have the same pace yet as the two teams at the front but today we were able to keep
one of them at bay so a great result for us, everyone has worked really hard. Huge congratulations to the
teams back at the factories and the team here. Without them, this wouldn’t have been possible and I’m
proud of them. And George did an amazing job today, too.
George Russell
It was a long and tough race. Our pace was strong, but we really struggled with the warm-up of the tyres on
the restart and Checo was strong today. I was glad to see the chequered flag and come home P3. We’re
making a lot of progress and we really need to improve our qualifying performance as we’re lacking
consistency. We know as a team we struggle with the tyre warm-up and at the restart I struggled with the
same issue. Our race pace today was reasonable and we’re getting closer to the front. We’re doing
everything we can to improve the performance of the car and we believe we are on the right path, so we’re
excited what the next races can bring for us. We’re making progress and there is still more to come,
thanks to everyone back at the factories in Brackley and Brixworth for their hard work and dedication.
Toto Wolff
Overall, the drivers did a really good job and the team effort was great today. We’re extracting the maximum
that is possible on race day currently. George was clever and fast, while Lewis was fighting like a lion.
Lewis is absolutely on it and keeps pushing the team. He keeps his positive mindset, even on grim days
like yesterday and he never stops pushing. But we need to stay humble, because our car is just not good
enough to fight with the teams in the front. We’re lacking six to seven tenths to the leaders. In qualifying we
struggle to bring the tyres into the optimum window and don’t manage to extract the most from the first
flying lap. And then in the race, we lose three seconds at the start of the race, but once we stabilise, we
are actually not so bad. We still have a lot of work to do, but I believe we have the best people to do so. All
in all, today was a great team effort at track and back at the factories and we’re heading in the right
direction.
Frédéric Vasseur, Alfa Romeo Team Principal
“We were confident, before the race, we could convert some decent grid positions into points, but sadly it
wasn’t to be the case this afternoon. Valtteri struggled off the line and also had to take evasive action as
there were a few tangles ahead of him. We found ourselves with two cars at the bottom of the field by the
end of the first lap and it was always going to be hard to recover into the top ten from there. We had decent
pace – Zhou showed it when running in clean air after his stop – but that was not enough to make up
ground today. In the end, we brought one car home outside the points and had to retire the other with a
power unit issue: definitely not the result we hoped for, but at least we’ll have an opportunity to bounce back
immediately in Hungary. We’ll analyse today and understand what happened, especially because we
expect the weather conditions to be similar next weekend.”
Valtteri Bottas #77 C42 (Chassis 01/Ferrari)
“It was a really long race and it felt like a lot of sweat with nothing to show for it! Of course, you can learn
something from every race, so that must be what we take away from this weekend. We dropped a lot of
places at the start and that made it very difficult for us: our race pace was not as good as we expected,
even though the car improved a lot on medium tyres. Hopefully, some updates we will have in Budapest will
help us, we know the team is working really hard on it. To keep in the fight with the cars ahead of us in the
constructors’ championship, we need to find some extra performance, but I am confident we can do it as a
team.”
Zhou Guanyu #24 C42 (Chassis 04/Ferrari)
“About 10-15 laps to the end I was suffering with a power unit issue; I tried to do some switching, but
eventually that put an end to my race. It was a technical issue, and we will investigate that ahead of
Budapest to avoid having it happening again. Apart from that, the race just never went our way, we were
struggling all the way through. Regarding the contact with Mick, I was defending my inside in Turn 11, he
was trying to go for the outside but then it got to one point where the corner just became too small for me. I
think it’s difficult to judge for both of us, as that kind of compromised my race. Unfortunately, that happens
in racing, we just have to move forward. It was definitely not a day to remember for us, but having another
back-to-back race means a whole new weekend of opportunities to get competitive again and put ourselves
back where we belong.”
Weather: clear skies, dry. Temperature: air 31°, track 54°.
Start
Charles keeps the lead and by the end of the first lap Carlos is up to 17th.
Lap 3
Carlos passes one car per lap, first Valtteri Bottas, then Pierre Gasly, Mick Schumacher and Alex Albon to
get up to 13th place.
Lap 9
Charles is just ahead of Max Verstappen and Carlos passes Kevin Magnussen to go 12th.
Lap 12
Carlos passes Sebastian Vettel for 11th and dispenses with Lance Stroll next time round to move into the
points.
Lap 16
Verstappen pits for Hard tyres, rejoining seventh.
Lap 17
Sainz passes Ricciardo for ninth.
Lap 18
Charles goes off the track at turn 11 and his race is over. The Safety Car comes out. Carlos pits for
Mediums and is eighth.
Lap 21
The race resumes and Carlos moves up to seventh as he passes Lando Norris.
Lap 22
Sainz passes Fernando Alonso to go fifth.
Lap 23
Carlos given a five second penalty for unsafe release.
Lap 30
Carlos goes round the outside of George Russell on the outside of Signes to move up to fourth.
Lap 43
Carlos pits for a set of new Mediums. He rejoins ninth and on the next lap he passes Esteban Ocon and
Daniel Ricciardo. Another two laps and he is ahead of Norris to go sixth.
Lap 48
Carlos also overtakes Fernando Alonso to go fifth.
End
Verstappen wins from Lewis Hamilton, Russell, Perez and Sainz.
Pos R# Driver Team Chassis Time
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