Renault
Nico Hulkenberg
"It was a frustrating race today, especially as we had the pace for a better result. I felt really confident and the car was good. We could put in decent lap times in clear air, but it was pretty difficult to pass, so I spent a lot of time stuck in traffic. The pit stop was frustrating as we lost a lot of time at a vital moment in the race. This led to me being stuck behind Kevin Magnussen. I'm all for hard racing but he was just ruthless by pushing me off track, for which he was then penalised."
Jolyon Palmer
"The start was okay, but I lost out when I had to avoid Ricciardo, who suddenly slowed and that dropped me out of the top ten. As well as letting him through, my strategy was compromised today to try and help Nico's race, and that meant Magnussen and Kvyat jumped me. It was a frustrating run to the flag with much more pace, but no chance to overtake them on this track. Now I'm looking forward to summer break and switching off from racing to reset for Belgium."
Cyril Abiteboul, managing director
"It's a disappointing result on Sunday from what could have been a very strong weekend for us. Our starts weren't good enough with either car to move up the order, especially for Nico to recover from the gearbox penalty. Subsequently, we were caught in quite a procession as it is difficult to pass here. It was clear that Nico had more pace than Jolyon in the early stages, so they swapped position. Unfortunately, Nico was subsequently delayed with a wheel gun issue on his stop and this dealt his chances of points a fatal blow. His race then came to a premature end after being pushed off track by Magnussen, which caused a number of issues on the car. Jo had a solid race however the pace wasn't strong enough for points. Despite the disappointment today, we have taken a clear step forward with the car, as shown in qualifying and in clean air, so we are eager to put this into play in Spa."
