Max Verstappen said sixth place was a “good result” after encountering a litany of problems during the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver, who won the previous round at Suzuka, finished sixth in Bahrain after passing Pierre Gasly on the final lap of the race. That proved the highlight of an otherwise tough race.
Verstappen lost ground at the start, then made an early pit stop to replace his soft tyres. However he lost time as Red Bull’s pit lane gantry lights remained red after the crew completed their work. His second stop was also delayed due to a slow tyre change.
Matters were little better on the track as he complained of overheating and poor braking response – the latter having been a problem throughout the weekend for Red Bull.
Afterwards he admitted finishing sixth was positive under the circumstances. “The start was not good, then the pace was not good in the beginning already, just tyres overheating again,” he told Sky. “The balance was not where I wanted it to be.
“Then at the first pit stop something went wrong with the lights, they stayed on. Now, you can drive through the lights, but that’s not the protocol of the team. So I had to just wait, but then I realised there was a problem.
“Then I was stuck in traffic. The hard tyres, unfortunately, they didn’t work. They were just basically lower grip and even higher deg[radation] for me. Then we pitted again, an even worse pit stop, so then I was last.”
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Making his second pit stop shortly before the Safety Car was deployed put Verstappen at a further disadvantage. “Considering everything, to still finish P6, also with the pace that we had, I think it’s still a good result,” he said. “There’s not much more that I guess we could have done.”
The Bahrain International Circuit showed up the main weaknesses of the RB21, said Verstappen. “We are bad on tyre management at the moment,” he said.
“The balance is not where I wanted it to be and then on a track like this it all gets highlighted, that’s for sure.”
While most of his rivals favoured the medium tyre compound for the race, Verstappen saved fresh sets of hards. This left him at a further disadvantage, he admitted.
“It made it worse. [But] even if I would have had two mediums, the position would have been the same. I was not at the same level as the cars ahead of me.”
After taking the chequered flag, Verstappen told his team passing Gasly “was at least positive [on] that last lap.”
“Oh my god, that was difficult,” he added. “Jesus.”
“Unfortunately a lot of things on our side also went wrong in that race,” he told them. “That doesn’t help.”
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