Despite recent strong performances, Max Verstappen believes Red Bull had “no chance” to challenge higher than fifth and sixth places during the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman would endure a lonely race at Interlagos in fourth, with his only on-track battle coming with Lewis Hamilton as the recovering world champion made an easy move on faster tyres to demote Max to fifth.
So frustrated was Verstappen by the lack of pace, he would pit with eight laps to go before going on to set a new race lap record but that was no crumb of comfort for the 20-year-old.
“Yeah, I mean if the four drivers in front of me had a crash, then… No, it was definitely the best position we could do today,” he said, reflecting on the race. “We just lost out a lot on the straights, as you could see when Lewis passed me. We have no chance on this track. It’s really hard.
“At the positive side, the first 10, 15 laps in the stint, we were competitive but then you try to compensate what you lose on the straights and you’re asking maybe a bit too much from the tyres and the car balance, not like in Mexico for example, and you have more drop-off. Then it just gets a bit more difficult.”
Teammate Daniel Ricciardo had a more eventful race starting 14th after an engine grid penalty, the Australian would be an innocent party as he, Stoffel Vandoorne and Kevin Magnussen made contact going three-wide exiting Turn 2.
“I still don’t really know what happened but I assume the cars kind of drifted up into me and caught me,” he said on what happened. “I tried to leave as much room as I could. I got hit, and then fortunately we didn’t have damage. I think we just damaged the tyre.
“So I pitted for that, and we were able to come through the field – not as quickly as Lewis, but relatively for our pace.”
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner would later reveal another reason for the team’s inability to fight with the top two teams, as the Milton Keynes outfit was forced to turn down their engines to avoid a repeat of recent failures.
The Briton remains confident, however, engine supplier Renault will be in a stronger position next year, with the pressure on to perform.
“We’re hearing that Renault is making gains. If they can do that over the winter and most importantly address reliability, I’m confident we can give the drivers the car next year to put a really good campaign together [next year],” he said.
