Horner: 5th place was the best we could do&;

The Austrian single-seaters had a very good start to their race in Sakhir by managing to get ahead of Kimi Räikkönen’s Ferrari in the first lap. Max Verstappen was then leading Daniel Ricciardo, who took advantage of Felipe Massa’s position to act as a “buffer” against the Finnish driver struggling to overtake his Brazilian rival.

Daniel Ricciardo, a 5th place with a bitter taste

The Australian driver thus distinguishes two phases in his team’s race: « It was a race in two halves. At first, I sincerely thought we had a chance to win. The first stint seemed competitive, and I could see Valtteri struggling in front; I was at the end of the leading group and could see everyone ahead of me sliding, they seemed to be struggling more than us ». And he adds about his ambitious goals for the Grand Prix: « It was easy for me to stay there and focus on my tires, to the point that I thought it was possible today not only to consider a podium but also a victory ».

Red Bull couldn’t have dreamed of a better start for this Bahraini race until the safety car was deployed following the collision between Carlos Sainz Jr.’s Toro Rosso and Lance Stroll’s Williams, with the latter forced to stop his car on the track between turns 1, named “Michael Schumacher” in 2014, and 2. While the Australian took advantage of this to progress up the rankings, the restart was tricky: The safety car worked in my favor as we jumped to 3rd place, but it wasn’t as good for our tires, and that’s where we lost a lot of ground! […] Even when we found the rhythm, we fell down the hierarchy, and I started struggling for grip on both the front and rear. We really couldn’t make the soft tires work today.

Christian Horner, the boss of the Red Bull team, also points out the performance flaw of the yellow-walled tires, concluding that the 5th place was the best we could do.

Max Verstappen in the wall after 12 laps

The nocturnal escapade of the young Dutch driver was abruptly halted after he experienced a troubling malfunction with his electronic braking system right after his particularly anticipated pit stop. The Red Bull driver, however, upheld the team’s strategy after the race: « I was able to stay with the leaders, the car was really performing well and the pace was good. We made a good pit stop by trying to anticipate it to counter the two Mercedes, but the brakes failed at the rear on lap 12 and everything was over ».

The winner of the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix thus regrets that his team and he missed a possible podium: « There are certainly positive things to take away today, the car was performing better than in the previous two races, so it’s just an unfortunate end since we could certainly have scored big points ».