Q:
Same question on hard tyres, you weren’t happy on the hard tyres, presumably?
FM:
For sure, the softs were much better for us, but as Kimi said, even if Lewis was quite close, if we didn’t make a mistake for sure he wouldn’t pass us. I was doing similar lap times to Kimi and was just looking at the gap behind and it was not such a big problem.
Q:
How important was it to get past Robert at the start, Lewis?
LH:
Yes, absolutely. Obviously qualifying fifth didn’t really put us in a great spot to win the race. We knew we had quite a good strategy and obviously at the beginning I just had to try and make up as many places as possible. It was great to get past Robert otherwise we would probably have finished behind him. As you could see, through the race, he was right up my tail throughout, but the whole race we were doing almost exactly the same times. I’m very very happy that I got past him at the beginning and I think it was a solid job by us.
Q:
Is it a surprise to have been as close to the Ferraris as you were?
LH:
Yeah, for sure you could say it was a surprise because they were extremely quick, but it was all very, very close in qualifying. We had a feeling they were a little bit lighter than us, maybe it was one or two laps, whatever. We all seemed to be very close. They just seem to have a slight edge at the moment but it was impressive. I was really happy with the balance of the car and the tyres came and went, and came and went. I was able to maintain quite a good balance and pace and keep up with them. It was quite close in the middle stint. When you get to within a couple of seconds of someone, you’re damaging your tyres more and it’s harder to stay behind them but I was happy with where we came.
