Verstappen: Russian result maximised but Red Bull need more

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen was satisfied to secure the “maximised” result of fourth in the Russian Grand Prix, but has challenged the team to push for better.

Red Bull is increasingly finding itself in no man’s land in Formula 1, being slower than Mercedes and Ferrari but faster than the “Formula 1.5” midfield, seeing them comfortably finish fifth and sixth, with any increases having to come from failures or errors from the cars and teams in front.

Thankfully for the team one such failure in Russia came from Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who suffered an engine issue and had to retire - promoting Verstappen to fourth and enabling Albon to fight his way to an eventual fifth place.

Whilst this result was “the best possible” for him in Russia, the Dutchman believes there is work to be done to get the team to where they need to be, especially with Japan up next as Honda seek a big home result.

“I think P4 was the best possible result today and we had a little bit of luck with Seb retiring, but I’m satisfied with the points we scored considering the penalties and pace of Ferrari and Mercedes,” he said. “For sure we maximised the result but of course we want to be scoring more podiums and victories so we still have work to do as the others are very strong.”

This sentiment was echoed by Verstappen’s team mate Albon, who was able to fight his way from a pit lane start to an eventual fifth place – also the best they could have achieved.

“It was a good race and I think P5 is the best we could have done,” Albon said after the race. “I wanted to bounce back and get a good result after yesterday’s crash so I’m really happy with how the race went, although we probably got a bit lucky with the Safety Car. ”

Team boss Christian Horner confirmed that the team couldn’t have done any better than their eventual finishing positions, saying that whilst pace was respectable, it just wasn’t enough to challenge any further up the grid.

“It was a good performance from both of our drivers today.

“For Max, P4 was the maximum on the table having started from P9 and he made some great moves early in the race to move up the order.

“His pace at the end of the race was respectable but not quite enough to challenge the top three.

“Meanwhile Alex, who started from the pit lane, performed well to make his way through the field, making some great overtakes in what was another mature drive.

“To finish up in P5 was an impressive race from him and fourth and fifth was probably the maximum achievable for us today.”

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