Pressiteade
The points haulmeans the team moves onto 99 points – more than its entire total from 2019 – toremain fifth in the Constructors’ Championship.
Anaction-packed race start saw Esteban progress from seventh on the grid tofourth by the end of lap one with Daniel remaining fifth, despite running ashigh as third place for two corners after an electric getaway off the line.Esteban passed Daniel at Turn 7 on the opening lap.
Daniel fellback to sixth on lap 15 with his Soft tyres starting to lose rear grip and hepitted a lap later for Hards. Esteban pitted on lap 18 for Hard tyres but losta position when Sergio Perez ran longer on the overcut strategy. With those onthe reverse strategy a threat, Esteban let Daniel by on lap 26 to make furtherinroads and cover those behind. After running wide at Turn 2 during the move,Daniel was given a 5-second time penalty.
From there,Daniel extended the advantage to sixth place to ensure the time penalty did notdrop him down the order with Esteban defending brilliantly from a fast-chargingDaniil Kvyat on home turf to hang on for seventh.
Daniel Ricciardo, started P5,finished P5:
“I’m pleased with the resulttoday and it’s a decent one for the team as well. I had a great start and gotup to third in the first few corners before falling back to fifth. The racethen changed on the Hard tyres, we had good pace but obviously I made themistake getting past Esteban into Turn 2 and had the time penalty. I locked thefront brakes, so I take responsibility for that, but I was able to put thatmistake right and recover well. Taking a step back, I’m pretty happy with myday, and the end result, as we take home some good points. The car is workingwell, and reliability is good, so everything has come together nicely for us.”
EstebanOcon, started P7, finished P7:
“It’s a greatteam result, overall, so that’s good. When we put on the Hards, the car was notthe same. It was a bit tricky to drive and I was struggling with grip andbalance and I just wasn’t as happy as I was on the Softs. I was almostfollowing Max [Verstappen] on the Softs at the beginning of the race, so that’ssomething for us to review there. Potentially, more points were possible, butwe’re still happy with the result and how our race went. We know the car isquick and that’s good for future races. We’re going in the right direction;we’re catching the guys in front and that’s the target for the Constructors’Championship.We’re getting there.”
Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal:
“Theweekend has delivered a strong team result with 16 points added to theConstructors’ Championship. We felt since Friday morning that we could achievethat sort of position and it’s good to have done that. Obviously, you alwayswant more, but the four cars that finished ahead of Daniel deserved to be wherethey are. We knew we would be under the threat of the cars starting outside thetop ten and that’s exactly what happened with Leclerc and Kvyat. But Daniel wasreally impressive in building the required gap to Leclerc to absorb thefive-second penalty from going deep into Turn 2 when we swapped the cars tomitigate the time lost behind Vettel. Esteban, on his side, struggled a bitmore with grip at times during the race, but was remarkable in defending fromKvyat for more than 20 laps and contributed to the overall team achievement. Weleave Sochi with 99 points after 10 races, which is more than what we scoredlast year over a 21-race season, which is a clear demonstration of the team’sprogression, year on year. It’s also closer than ever to the two teams aheadand it’s going to be a very exciting fight with both of them to the end of theseason.”
