Oracle Red Bull Racing and Visa Cash App Racing Bulls team quotes from Sunday’s race at Interlagos.
Max Verstappen drove a brilliant race to storm through the field from the pit-lane start and bank third place at Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix as the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls drivers claimed impressive top-10 finishes at Interlagos.
Dutchman Verstappen produced a gutsy performance to recover from a poor Saturday qualifying display and move through the field to finish third behind McLaren’s Lando Norris and the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli.
His Oracle Red Bull Racing teammate Yuki Tsunoda finished 17th, however Visa Cash App Racing Bulls duo Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar ended the day seventh and eighth respectively after an excellent weekend.
QUOTES
Oracle Red Bull Racing
MAX VERSTAPPEN – 3rd
“From pitlane to podium, this weekend has completely turned around for me, something that I didn’t think was possible. The start of the race was very hectic and I picked up a puncture early on from a load of debris on the track which meant that I pretty much had to start the race again. The Team used the right strategy from start to finish which allowed me to get through all of the traffic very efficiently. I definitely had to send it a few times to get past the other cars but I love doing that and ended up having an unexpectedly fun race. Overall it showed that we had really good pace today and that the grip was much better than the last couple of days. The atmosphere at Interlagos was amazing and it really spurred me on. I am so proud of the Team and would like to thank them for all of the hard work that they put into making the changes post Quali last night. We kept pushing and took multiple risks this weekend because we never want to settle for second and we didn’t give up. To start in the pitlane and finish P3 on the podium only 10 seconds off P1 was incredible. Now all we can do is keep fighting hard over the final few races of the season and do the best that we possibly can whilst trying to find as much performance as we can extract from the car. A huge congratulations to Kimi as well, he drove amazingly well which will have given his confidence a huge boost which is great for any rookie!”
YUKI TSUNODA – 17th
“The whole weekend has been a difficult one for myself. We tried lots of things as a Team, some which worked and others that didn’t. I had a good start to the race on the Hard tyre and made up a couple of positions before using the safety car to pit early. Unfortunately, there was contact with Lance and I had to serve a penalty which made it really tricky to have a positive result today, the extra pitstop also hurt us. I’m not throwing anything away, and in the last stint I showed good pace. I’ll continue to do what I can to maximise from here until the end of the season. Credit to Max also, it was an incredible drive from him and he scored some great points for the Team in the Constructors.”
LAURENT MEKIES – CEO and Team Principal
“It was an unbelievable performance from Max today, we all know he did it last year from P17 to win in the wet and it was one of the most extraordinary races one could watch. But this year he almost did it again – from the pitlane, in the dry and, having to make an extra stop with a slow puncture on the first set of tyres. Hats off to him and the Team, they executed a very sharp strategy to get through the field. More importantly, the car was alive again and at the right level of performance. This is not a win but a very positive day for us, everyone has done an amazing job. We took risks, we made mistakes and explored things across the weekend but it is part of the learning process that we feel we need to go racing at the level we want to compete at. The car probably had the pace to fight for the win today, which is exactly what we were looking for when we decided to make the changes overnight. With Yuki, he lost a lot of time today with his 10-second penalty and then we made a mistake on our side and incurred another. So, it is a shame that it doesn’t seem to be going our way with Yuki. His last stint was strong and if you removed those two penalties, he would have ended up fighting for points. We will be wishing to have a slightly quieter weekend in Vegas but with everyone’s support again at track and back home on Campus, we will be ready to fight no matter the circumstances.”
Visa Cash App Racing Bulls
LIAM LAWSON – 7th
“I’m super happy with today’s result. It was very tough towards the end as we opted for a one-stop strategy. The tyres were in good shape at that point, but it’s super sensitive around here. If you push too much in one corner, you pay the price in the next one, therefore tyre management was key. On top of that, I was trying to manage energy to make sure I had power down the straights. The strategy worked well for us, so a big congratulations to the team – it’s been a massive effort to have both cars in the points today.”
ISACK HADJAR – 8th
“I think we showed some good moments today despite having a tough race overall. We struggled during the first stint and at some points throughout the race, I got stuck in traffic and had to play with damage limitation. I started to have more fun from mid-race onwards, and during the last laps where I got closer to Liam. I pushed the car a bit too much and I made a mistake in trying to overtake him, but we brought home a P7 and P8, which is a nice double-points finish for the team. We’ll regroup together to analyse what we could have done better before starting the last triple-header of the year in Las Vegas in two weeks.”
ALAN PERMANE – Team Principal
“Firstly, congratulations to the whole team today! It’s been a barren spell for us, so to come back here and qualify so well, to then having both cars in the points is a superb effort. We didn’t have the pace of Bearman in the Haas today, but we outscore all our rivals in the Championship and give ourselves a healthier gap to seventh in the constructors championship. It was very close between both Liam and Isack; we split the strategies, and they ended up racing each other, which we trusted them to do, and Liam came out on top with an excellently managed one-stop strategy. We have two weeks until Las Vegas where we head into one of the toughest sequences of the year with the final triple header. What will be important is preparing well for Vegas but also making sure that everyone gets some time to recover and refresh.”
-Photo credits : Rudy Carezzevoli, Buda Mendes, Simon Galloway, Mark Thompson, Michael Potts/LAT Images)
– Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool