Horner: We didn’t have the speed to fight Ferrari

Sergio Perez took his first podium of the season and finished second in Melbourne. His teammate Max Verstappen stopped due to a fuel leak. In Red Bull Racing you don’t hide what the team has to add to fight with Ferrari.

Sergio Perez (2nd): “Good result, but unfortunately Max stopped – it would be great if we could bring the team a double podium. On the other hand a good result for me after so many failures in previous races.

The race turned out to be very difficult, from the start to the safety cars, but we were able to bounce back. My start turned out to be very weak and in the first segment the Medium tires deteriorated a lot. I was unlucky when the safety car came out and I lost two positions, which I later won back.

There were a few mistakes this weekend that left us fighting more with Mercedes than with Ferrari. The pace was not what we would like, but the team is working on it. There is a lot to analyze as yesterday we were close to pole position and in the race the car didn’t have enough speed.

Ferrari is fast, we wanted to compete with them, but today we couldn’t. If we can at least improve the car a little, it gives confidence to the team.”

Max Verstappen (retirement): “Of course I’m disappointed that I’m not ready. I don’t know what caused it yet, but we will bring the car back to base and figure everything out. Even before the race I knew I might not finish, but I tried not to think about it, we don’t need such results if we want to fight for the title – the gap is already quite big.

It’s good that Sergio finished second and earned points. In general, I don’t feel we can solve the situation easily – we have to act as a team because we have a lot of work ahead of us.

We will wake up tomorrow and focus on the upcoming races, try to do everything in our power. There are still a lot of races to go, anything can happen – given our situation we need 45 races!”

Christian Horner, Team Principal: “Sergio had a great race, made some spectacular overtakes, took the podium for the first time of the season and scored a lot of points. However, we are still experiencing mixed feelings due to Max not finishing.

We believe an external fuel leak was the cause of the descent. It is necessary to understand what exactly causes it. A very disappointing result, but we are a team and we will bounce back.

Today we didn’t have the speed to fight Ferrari, so congratulations to Charles. We have a long season ahead of us, we have a fast and competitive car, but problems need to be solved quickly. We will continue to attack.”