Verstappen analyses second place: “No team orders”
Published on 02 October 2016 by Mike Motilall
After the Malaysian Grand Prix, there was enough stuff to talk about. As the Brits were mostly devastated by Lewis Hamilton’s retiring from the race, the talk of the town was mainly about Red Bull’s one-two. As they are pushing Mercedes to their limits, cracks are beginning to appear in the armor of the German team. Max analyzed the race afterwards with a happy feeling: “After I lost some positions in the first corner, I was forced to go all out the entire race. I could have won the race, but the feeling of having it slipped through my fingers is not really there.”
“The race started well, with a good start, but after the start suddenly a red car appeared out of nowhere and just dived in between. I can understand that you have better start, but it serves no purpose diving in between so late”, says Max with a lot of bewilderment regarding Sebastian Vettel’s move in the first corner. The latter has been handed a three place-grid penalty for the Japanese Grand Prix. “It compromised my race. But after that, it kept getting better. Kimi was not paying attention when the first virtual safety car ended, so I overtook him quite quickly. After that, we were able to overtake the other cars also very quickly. The speed was there and I closed the gap to Ricciardo very fast. But when you get within one second, it is very hard to pass. Then we switched to another strategy, and that looked good.”
“When we switched to the harder compound tyre, the plan was to go all the way to the end. And that strategy would have worked, but after that great fight with Daniel, there was another virtual safety car. That was a very nice fight, it was very hard to see him in my mirrors at that speed. But we have a lot of respect for each other so we gave each other enough room. Had it been someone else, then I would have made the move stick. I had fresher tyres at that moment and would have passed him eventually. I was in DRS-range and could have won the race, so when the safety car came out, I wasn’t all too happy.”
“When we both pitted, I didn’t have any fresh tyres anymore but he did. I never give up and did close the gap. But it’s the same as always, when you get within one second it gets very difficult as the tyres heat up very rapidly. Verstappen confirms that neither of the team mates had been given any team orders. “The team said: ‘you are free to race, but if you’re at the back and on older tyres, it will be hard to turn that around. But if you’re at the front with older tyres, then you can manage that. In this way it was very hard.”
“It’s a pity that the safety cars came out as they did, but that is racing, that’s part of the game. It is a good result for the team.” How does it taste like, drinking out of Daniel’s shoe? “Very good, a nice combination of sweat and champagne!”
