Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo
“I have never really had a boring win and today was certainly not that. After all the chaos and the red flag I felt that a podium was in reach but then once Lewis had to pit and Seb had the penalty I knew the win was possible. I kind of said yesterday that after my qualifying mistake and starting in tenth place, today was going to be a race of no mistakes, capitalising on moments and opportunities and I felt like we did everything we could this afternoon. The odds of a podium or win got pushed even further back when we had to make an unscheduled pit stop early in the race and I think I was back in seventeenth place. Then things fell in to place quite nicely and on every re-start I was able to make up positions and make it happen. The last re-start was the most important and I think it was Stroll, Hulkenberg, Massa and me, all nearly four wide but I managed to get third and I think that was, in a way, the winning move. Once I saw the gap I was going to do everything I could to brake as late as possible and get that position. It was a real shame for Max today but it is great to get this victory for everyone in the team. I felt like this weekend was better for us overall and hopefully both of us can be on the podium together soon. What a day, it’s crazy and it’s slowly sinking in.”
Max Verstappen
“After what looked like a promising position at the beginning of the race I was gutted to be let down once again by a technical problem. After an action packed race we were confident we could have had at least a podium here in Baku, so I am very disappointed with this outcome.”
Christian Horner, team principal
“Certainly an action packed grand prix, and an unbelievable afternoon. It started with a bit of chaos with Daniel picking up some debris after the incident between Kimi and Valtteri that got stuck in his brake ducts, we had to pit him very early to get rid of that debris and it looked like he was out of the race at that point. At the time, Max was in a really strong position harrying for P3 and looked like he great pace in the car. Unfortunately a sudden failure in the engine eliminated Max from the race which is hugely frustrating. From then on we kept our focus with Daniel and he was coming back through the order with great passing moves and restarts. The team had a handle on the strategy and following the red flag he had another great start with a brilliant pass on both Williams. We had a little bit of luck with the penalties for Lewis and Sebastian and it gave us our first victory of 2017. An unbelievable tale of two halves today but fantastic for the team to score its 53rd grand prix victory.”
