Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton
"I went forwards and got into the points, but it was a tough race. Ultimately, I made a bad set-up change to the car yesterday and I paid the price for it. I plan to make sure I don't do that in the future! The car does seem to work in a small window, and I did think it was the correct thing to do. Sadly, it made today very difficult. The team did a great job with the pit stops though and George did well to score some solid points. I'm sure the next race in Miami will be better.
"Whilst I didn't have the best race, it's still been awesome to see the incredible fans here. They are some of the best anywhere in the world. I am so grateful to see them again after several years away and it made for a brilliant atmosphere."
George Russell
"Starting P8 and making up a few positions was what we were expecting from today's race. The result is probably a fair one and we know we have work to do. We've had a similar battle with Alonso and Piastri in the last three races so P6 is about where our car is at present.
"It was interesting weekend, overall. With the Sprint format, we ended up having two very different set-ups on the car from Friday and Saturday morning into the rest of the weekend. There's lots to pick through and hopefully things to build on. We need to keep on adding performance to the car in order to finish higher up the grid. We will keep working hard to do so."
Toto Wolff, team principal & CEO
"Considering where we started today and more importantly, where we had put the cars in terms of their set-up after the Sprint, P6 and P9 was the best prediction from our pre-race simulations. The car that we have under us is not currently fast enough. However, we must make sure that we are not trying to find a silver bullet each weekend when it comes to how we run the car; we need to focus on getting the basics right, and maximising the package we have. Today, we didn't have the car in the right window: we made too many extreme changes after the Sprint and that made the most important part of the weekend much more challenging. We know that today's result is not strong enough overall, so we must dig deep to make improvements. The pack behind Red Bull is close, and small details can make a big difference in terms of finishing position. We have developments to bring in the coming races which we hope are a step forward and will improve the car."
Andrew Shovlin, trackside engineering director
"It was always going to be a tough race for us. We're not quick enough currently and we didn't qualify well. Our finishing positions were exactly where we'd forecast them to be this morning. George couldn't really have got more out of it; he got a good start which put him ahead of the Ferraris, but we'd taken a bit too much out of the rear tyres in that first stint and had to box earlier than planned. That early stop would have been more painful to deal with, but the two Safety Car periods were helpful for us and neutralised the tyre age offset. The race from there in was straightforward. We were not quick enough to attack Sainz but had the pace to stay ahead of Fernando.
"Lewis's race wasn't easy as he didn't gain much off the line on the Soft tyre. He then got stuck in a traffic jam on the inside line around Turn 2 and lost to cars on the wide line. We had made some changes to his car after the Sprint and clearly, they weren't didn't improve the car. It made Qualifying and the race difficult. He was struggling to turn the car and having to use the power to do so, which was hurting the rear tyres. We decided to pit him under the Virtual Safety Car to offset to other cars, but most of our competitors did the same once the Safety Car was deployed. We benefitted from a couple of cars dropping out ahead but, considering the early part of the race, it was a relief to get some points. We will work hard to ensure we do a better job at the next race in Miami."
