Perez Finishes 5th, Tsunoda 7th in Australian GP

I don’t think it was an ideal weekend for us, since Friday we had struggled quite a bit with the long run and we tried different solutions and compromises for Saturday but we couldn’t get a total handle on it. In the first stint the balance was super neutral, I didn’t have any rear grip and we completely destroyed the rear tyres and then the second stint I completely destroyed the front tyres. It wasn’t a nice balance out there, it was a bit of surviving mode with the degradation we had, and we didn’t match up to Ferrari or McLaren. The grid penalty also harmed us because without that we could have ended up a lot further up. I think today was track dependent, so hopefully when we go to Japan we are back on top.

Finally, a top ten finish, the team definitely deserves it, and I’m very happy! We were very consistent throughout this weekend and the car felt good straight away, so we just had to put it all together and have a clean race to score points in this tight midfield, and we were able to achieve that today. We didn’t make any mistakes and it’s important for the team and me to have that confidence going into the next races. To have a clean race sounds easy, but the last two races have been frustrating for us, so finishing P8 today, after a productive restructuring, was definitely deserved. The team did a fantastic job, and I can see the team is significantly improving every race. The difference in the car between the same time in Melbourne last year and this year is impressive. The amount of work we put into that car was massive and the work definitely paid off. To be honest, the race wasn’t so easy because other teams actually picked up their pace quite a bit, but I’m very happy we were able to maximise our performance and opportunity, and glad to hear that George is okay in the end. The whole weekend is a great way to go into Japan, especially with this result under the belt, and at least, I’m able to give some hope to the Japanese fans. I haven’t scored any F1 points at my home Grand Prix, but the car looks good, so let's try again this year. I’ve been resetting myself every week and our car has been very consistent which is different compared to last year, so that’s a strength. For myself, I just learn from previous races and focus on what I can do better to help the team. Now it’s time for us to analyse, reset and push again in Japan! 

After last night, I let go of the frustration and put it aside coming into the race. I tried to get the most out of today and there were some good stints in there. A lot of drivers pitted early like me, but starting from the back of the grid, we had to try something. I think in the first stint on the hard compound I lost a little bit of time as the graining came up pretty soon with the VSC, but the second one was definitely more competitive. I was able to drive on a low 1:21 as a lap time before we got some blue flags, so there were certainly some good and encouraging moments throughout the race. Nevertheless, I think we’re still missing some things as sometimes I feel like and I’m not carrying enough speed in some corners. During the race, I marked some points that are good for gathering data and will help us continue understanding our car. Obviously, I would have loved to have a better weekend and start to the season, especially after the preparation I had coming into it. However, there’s no panic, we continue keeping our eyes on the prize and working together. I feel like the car itself has not really changed from last year, it’s an update but the characteristics are very similar. There’s some confidence in that and I don’t think we have to change everything, so we’ll find something in one of the next weekends to continue the positive performance trend. 

It is unfortunate about what happened today, but we can see so far in the data that as soon as the lights went off the right rear brake just stuck on and locked. It was basically like driving with the hand brake on so, of course, the temperature just kept on increasing and then I could see smoke appear as it had caught fire. This at the time was very confusing as the car was really weird to drive in some corners. At turn three, I braked and lost the rear end of the car; it felt weird on the rear axel, then on turn six and seven it snapped on me. The Team will investigate and we will see if there are any answers but there are some things you can’t control. It’s a shame as the car felt really good in the laps to the grid, but you cannot control these issues and these things happen. Of course, I am disappointed we didn’t finish the race as we had a good shot at winning and the car has been improving throughout the weekend. We knew a day like could come at some point so we need to be proud that we have had a great run with nine races in a row and we can come back stronger for Suzuka.