Sunday: McLaren took a risky but rewarding strategy

Jenson Button – 7th: « We thought we had a chance to make it to the podium, but in the end, we didn’t have the pace to stay ahead of the cars coming back at us. Despite that, it was fun to try, and we need to take risks if we want to get podiums this year. We planned to spend most of the race on the Option tires, so we set up the car accordingly. The Prime tires didn’t work very well for me, and having to hold Kimi back for so long destroyed my rear tires and made things very tricky. In the end, as I said, we didn’t have the pace to stop him from overtaking us. Still, it was a good attempt, and finishing 7th is not too bad. I’m sure we couldn’t have done better with a different strategy, so I’m happy we managed to score good points for the team. »

Sergio Perez – 8th: « I think we can be satisfied with our result today. As Jenson said, 7th and 8th were probably the best possible positions today. From my point of view, the safety car came out at the wrong time for us. We had to take a risk by deciding to drive to the end with a two-stop strategy. It was quite hard to keep the car out of the barriers, not crash while not losing too much time per lap, but as I said, I think it was the right choice. Last but not least, even if 7th and 8th is not extraordinary, it’s the best we could hope for. I sincerely hope this will put a smile on the faces of my people, my country, Mexico, which really needs to smile in these difficult times. »