Red Bull Racing
Max Verstappen, 3rd
"It’s great to be back on the podium. It was a little bit of a surprise, but we made the right calls and didn’t leave anything on the table. We had a very good first stint on the Soft tyre, and that gave us the gap we needed. The Medium tyre was more difficult because managing the temperatures, combined with going in and out of Virtual Safety Cars, made things more challenging. I enjoyed the last few laps battling with Lewis, and I pushed hard to take the position back. Over the last two weekends, we’ve been a lot closer, and there have been positive steps forward. It’s also our first podium with our own powertrain, which is a great milestone for the Team, so credit to everyone for getting us here.”
Isack Hadjar, 5th
"I started off with a very good launch but struggled a lot with pace during the race. The car was very fast but hard to drive compared to yesterday when I felt more comfortable, so I couldn’t push as hard as I wanted. I think we could have secured fourth place, but had to settle for fifth in the end. The overall car performance this weekend was very positive – we took a big step forward since Miami and made the most of the weekend. I hope we can keep the same momentum for Monaco."
Laurent Mekies, Team Principal
"Firstly, congratulations to everyone at Red Bull Ford Powertrains. To claim our very first podium with our own PU, in only its fifth race, is truly a historic moment, especially when you consider the pedigree and experience of our competitors. A PU on its own is not enough and of course this result is also down to the hard work of everyone back on campus in Milton Keynes and here at the track.
Overall, maybe we have closed the gap a little bit more to those ahead of us and this confirms we are moving in the right direction, but we are well aware that the next three to five tenths that we need to find are always the hardest ones.
Max was as strong as always, very fast and very consistent, knowing the right time to apply pressure. Isack was on the pace and got into the right rhythm from the start of the weekend and he delivered an impressive performance, also having to deal with a couple of penalties. It was important for the championship to have both cars scoring good points.
We still have a lot to learn about how to extract everything out of the package we have, while at the same time, everyone in Milton Keynes is working flat out to bring our next development to the fight at the race track."
