Jean-Marc Finot (Peugeot): "Happy to have a car on the front row"

Did this qualifying session meet your expectations?

As long as we are not the fastest, we will not be satisfied. We are still competitors. But there are reasons to be satisfied. In Monza, we had a difficult race. We made good progress in Fuji and it seems that we are even better here, which is positive. But we are also aware that our progress will be more and more minimal in the sense that we are closer and closer to the limit. But we are happy to have managed to get one of our two cars on the front row.

What did you need to "tickle" Toyota more?

This is the first qualifying session where we can focus on performance. We still have a few things to learn. In particular, we saw that the Toyota was able to improve on its second flying lap, which we are not capable of. But fortunately they have been benefiting from being in this championship all this time.

In which area do you feel you have gained the most since Fuji?

It is difficult to answer. We will have to do a more in-depth analysis. We are obviously benefiting from the new Balance of Performance. But we have also worked hard on the settings. It is also a track where our top speed deficit is not as detrimental as at Monza or Fuji. 

Do you think you suffer from a greater tyre degradation than Toyota?

Honestly, I don't know.  We saw you doing long stints during free practice. What was the aim?

We are discovering the track whereas they (Alpine and Toyota) rely on a lot of data. So we did long runs to see how the tyres behave over time. We are now working on our race strategy based on this.