Check out the drivers' statements after the Formula 1 2022 French Grand Prix

Max Verstappen won the Formula 1 French Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver took advantage of Charles Leclerc's retirement at Paul Ricard on Sunday (24) and secured his seventh win of 2022 ahead of Lewis Hamilton. George Russell took the last place on the podium.

17s310 behind his Red Bull teammate, Sergio Pérez was fourth, ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr.

Fernando Alonso took sixth place, ahead of Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon, and Daniel Ricciardo. Lando Norris won a race with Sebastian Vettel to secure tenth place.

Pierre Gasly was 12th, ahead of Alex Albon, Valtteri Bottas, and Mick Schumacher. Guanyu Zhou, Nicholas Latifi, Kevin Magnussen, Leclerc, and Yuki Tsunoda were the retirements in France.

Check out the drivers' statements after the French GP:

Max Verstappen, winner: Verstappen highlights good pace in France and cites tires as challenge: "Take care until the end"

Lewis Hamilton, second: Hamilton sees reliability as an asset and reveals dehydration in France: "I lost 3kg".

George Russell, third: Russell criticizes Pérez for "not giving space" and defends himself: "I had the wheel in front of me".

Sergio Pérez, fourth: Pérez blames wrong VSC message for 'nap' in France: "It interfered with the result"

Carlos Sainz Jr., fifth: Ferrari: "They exaggerated the criticism" (opens in a new tab)" rel="noreferrer noopener" class="ek-link">Sainz celebrates reaction in France and defends Ferrari's tactics: "They exaggerated the criticism"

Fernando Alonso, sixth: Alonso values "solid race" in France and says: "We can always be in the top-6"

Lando Norris, seventh: Alpine "somewhat faster" than McLaren in France (opens in a new tab)" rel="noreferrer noopener" class="ek-link">Norris and Ricciardo recognize Alpine "somewhat faster" than McLaren in France

Esteban Ocon, eighth: Ocon celebrates Alpine's double score in France: "Goal completed"

Daniel Ricciardo, ninth: Ricciardo laments 'defense instead of attack' and says that points do not leave him "very satisfied

Lance Stroll, 10th: Stroll hails "great first lap" and says he blames tires for closing in on Vettel

Sebastian Vettel, 11th: F1 (opens in a new tab)" rel="noreferrer noopener" class="ek-link">Vettel sees race as "frustrating" and plays down Stroll's close call in French GP

Pierre Gasly, 12th: "We tried to fight our way into the scoring zone and we got 12th place, which is clearly not the performance we would have liked. The fans and spectators made it a special weekend to put a smile on my face, but I am extremely disappointed with the performance we showed. If we knew what the problem was, we would have changed it, but it was slipping all over the place and lacked grip, especially in the high turns. I tried everything I could on the car, changing the lines, but nothing worked. Obviously I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but based on the pace we had today, we need to review to understand why we did so well on Friday and have suffered since then. We finished only 3s behind 10th, so it wasn't so much behind, but they don't give points for 11th or 12th. Now it is important to understand this new package. It will take some time, but it's a tight pack, so we have to find the solutions. There are a few days left before Budapest, so we as a team have to stay stronger to find solutions and take a step forward."

Alexander Albon, 13th: "It was tricky today, but more enjoyable. We were in the fight for most of the race and looked close to the points. We fell a bit behind in terms of pace and were using too much tire to try to stay close, which affected us at the end. Let's look at the data and hope we can improve for next week, as we were pretty fast in qualifying. Let's look at that and see what we can do better in qualifying."

Valtteri Bottas, 14th: "It was a very long race, and it felt like we gave a lot of sweat with nothing to show in return. Of course, you can learn something from every race, so that has to be what we take away from this weekend. We lost several positions at the beginning, and this brought a lot of difficulties for us: our race pace was not as good as expected, even though the car improved a lot with medium tires. Hopefully, some updates we will get in Budapest will help us, we know that the team is working hard on this. To stay in contention with the cars ahead in the Constructors' World Cup, we need to find some extra performance, but I'm confident we can do that as a team."

Mick Schumacher, 15th: "We had a hard start with the medium tires, it didn't work as well as we thought it would. We knew it would be tough, so we stopped early, but unfortunately there was a safety car, which meant that a lot of people essentially had a free stop. With a pit-lane like we have here, the gap is very big, so we were very far behind, and then we had a contact with Zhou. All in all, it was pretty tough, but we learned a few things. Hopefully we will have a better weekend in Budapest.

Guanyu Zhou, didn't finish: "With ten or 15 laps to go, I was suffering from a problem with the power unit. I tried to change some things, but eventually it ended my race. It was a technical problem, and we will investigate this before Budapest to avoid it happening again. Other than that, the race never went our way, we were suffering all the time. Regarding the contact with Mick [Schumacher], I was defending on the inside at turn 11, he was trying to go on the outside, but we got to a point where the corner just became too tight for me. I think it's hard to judge for both of us, as it compromised my race. Unfortunately, this happens in motorsports, you just have to move on. It definitely wasn't a day to remember for us, but having another consecutive race means we'll have another weekend of opportunities to be competitive again and put ourselves where we should be."

Nicholas Latifi, unfinished: "They have a lot of positive things for us to take away from today's race. The pace was competitive, especially with dirty air, and I was racing against cars I haven't raced with all year, which is nice. For sure, I don't think I was at fault in the incident with Kevin, maybe it was more of a racing incident. It was a shame as our pace was strong and we were racing against cars that were a bit stronger. Being further ahead in qualifying would have made a difference, but it's good to race again. I'm confident with the pace that came with the upgrade and I feel like the season is getting back on track."

Kevin Magnussen, not completing: "We did our best and I tried hard today, I did some good maneuvers, but in the end the tire degradation was too high. The car was great at the start of the stints and our pace was fantastic, as we saw yesterday in qualifying as well. For some reason, we had too much wear and tear and that's why we couldn't really fight today."

Charles Leclerc, not completed: Leclerc Exonerates Ferrari and Admits Error for Crash in France: "I don't deserve to be champion like that"

Yuki Tsunoda, not quite finished: "The car was pretty damaged at the beginning and it got worse with each lap. I watched on the onboard camera and definitely left some space, but he lost control. It ended our whole race, and in the end, 5s is not enough when he continued without any damage, even scoring. I know these things happen in racing, but it's a shame, especially after such a good qualifying. I feel bad for the team, also for everyone at the factory, to finish like this after all the work they did. We didn't score any points after such a big upgrade, but at the same time I feel that I did the best I could this weekend. Although qualifying was good, the race is where they distribute the points, so it was unfortunate. Top-8 would have been possible, but it is what it is, and we will certainly come back stronger and better in Hungary. We have a good car, so we have to remain optimistic.

Formula 1 returns next weekend, July 29-31, with the Hungarian Grand Prix, which closes the first part of the championship. GRANDE PRÊMIO follows LIVE and IN REAL TIME all the activities of the weekend in Hungaroring.