Max Verstappen acknowledged a podium finish brought some relief after a poor weekend for Red Bull in Singapore.
Hopes for a victory challenge never materialised as the Milton Keynes outfit was frustratingly third fastest of the top three teams with Ferrari’s pace surprising everyone.
Reflecting on the weekend, the Dutchman made a point that he wasn’t happy with Red Bull’s performance.
“It was not good enough,” Verstappen stated via Crash.net. “We came here to win and we clearly didn’t.
“Yesterday I think was worse than today. I would say it’s a little wake-up call. From Austria onwards, I would say it’s our worst race in terms of performance where we expected to be really good.”
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Even the usual trend of Red Bull being stronger on a Sunday was slightly skewed, yet it was the strategy that in some ways saved Verstappen’s weekend.
“I think it was a bit better in the race I could follow a bit. I was not in a position to attack but at least I could follow the cars ahead of me,” he explained.
“They never really pulled away but of course initially it was all about tyre management anyway, so we were driving really slowly.
“I think we pitted at the right time, I undercut Lewis [Hamilton] and that was very positive but from there onwards it was just about staying in the race.
“But I think we managed everything quite well. For us, after the difficulties we had in qualifying, it is still good to be on the podium.”
Up next comes a circuit Red Bull have always struggled at in Russia, however, Verstappen does think they can be stronger.
“I have a few ideas why it went wrong so we will analyse all of them and see if we can already be better at Sochi,” he said.
“The layout is not amazing for us but you can clearly see if the car is working through corners or not.
“I think here clearly in two corners the car was not working like I wanted it to, so we will go away and see what we can do better.”
