How are you physically after your Indianapolis crash?
I'm fine. I saw the FIA doctor Gary Hartstein, the circuit medical staff and then I went to the hospital just to have some precautionary X-rays done. But I'm in good shape.

So there were no repercussions at all?
No. The impact was much smaller than the one last year. That's why I'm here.

You must be thinking that you are jinxed in Turn 13 at Indianapolis?
You could say that! I always thought that lightning doesn't strike the same place twice but now I know different!

You qualified 12th quickest in France. Was that simply a result of having to go out first because you didn't take part at Indy?
Yes. There is always a tendency to push 110% to try to make up for the penalty of having less grip when you are first out onto the track and there is no rubber down. The problem is, it becomes a vicious circle. I braked a little bit late for the Adelaide Hairpin and you can call it a mistake, but there simply wasn't the grip available. I'd say it cost me around 0.3s and so perhaps I could have been a couple of places better off.

How frustrating is it being penalised at the next race by events beyond your control?
It is frustrating, for sure, but you have to play the cards that you are dealt. I know that a few people have made comments about the rules but they are not made by the drivers and it is our job to get on with the task under the rules that are in force. Sometimes they work for you and sometimes against, but over the course of a season you expect it to even out.

How did the car feel generally at Magny-Cours?
Really good at first, actually. I was second quickest in Saturday morning free practice and then Jarno qualified second, so we definitely had the potential to score another podium.

You seemed to make a lot of progress on Saturday?
I don't think it was anything specific. On Friday we were primarily working towards the race set-up; tyre choice and so forth. But we did manage to improve the car and we did look to be in good shape.

When you qualify mid-grid, what is the approach for the race?
You hope to get a good start, make up a couple of positions and then see what you can do. But overtaking is difficult at Magny-Cours.

Why is that, when you have a long straight followed by a tight hairpin?
The problem is that immediately before the straight you have Turn 3, which is a long, fast, sweeping corner taken in fourth gear at high speed. The way the aerodynamics work with a Formula 1 car, if you get very close to the car in front the front wing does not work efficiently and you lose downforce through the corner. That makes you slower coming out of the turn and the result is that unless you have a very big straightline speed advantage, you are too far behind to have a realistic chance of outbraking someone into the hairpin. Generally, if you have a slow corner onto a long straight with a tight corner at the other end, then you have a better chance.

So unless you have a big car advantage, overtaking is almost impossible?
Exactly. We saw that in the race with Kimi Raikkonen, who had a very quick car but started 13th on the grid because of a 10-place penalty after an engine failure. He had the pace to set the race's fastest lap but was still unable to make much progress in traffic until the cars ahead of him started to pit.

Did you have any significant updates on the car in France?
No. There are always little aerodynamic updates coming at each race, but nothing special.

Finally, there was a story about your dog being stolen. What happened?
Yeah, that's pretty sad. It was stolen, or kidnapped, we don't know yet, last weekend in the south of France. We had gone to St Tropez for a bit of recovery time after Indy before coming here. We just went out and usually he stays roundabout our feet but all of a sudden we turned around and he was gone, basically. We looked everywhere but apparently it's something quite common for people to steal dogs there and then sell them again.