Christian Horner We are waiting for an interesting race

Red Bull Racing had a successful sprint. Max Verstappen started and finished first, while Sergio Pérez moved from 13th to fifth…

Max Verstappen (1st): “It’s nice to win the sprint on the team’s home track. In the first two laps I was able to pull away, after that you had to keep up the pace.

The sprint does not yet give the full picture for tomorrow’s race, but in terms of pace, Ferrari and I are close. I expect a tough fight, at some point we will put hard tires on – I wonder how they will work. It is extremely important to make the right strategic decisions during the race, because nobody knows how things will turn out. The race won’t be easy, but I’m looking forward to it.”

Sergio Perez (5th): “A good race in which I was able to recover well. I had a good start and avoided problems with Lewis and other riders riding in a group in the third corner. I squeezed the maximum out of the sprint and achieved a good result.

When I passed everyone, George Russell was too far in front of me to overtake. I would like to go back to fourth, but fifth is a good starting position. We have to draw conclusions from the results of the sprint race to climb onto the podium tomorrow.”

Christian Horner, Team principal: “Yesterday we won pole, today we won the sprint, tomorrow we will start first in the race – it’s fantastic. In the early laps Max loaded the tires heavily to create a hole, protecting himself from the DRS attack, and Ferrari saved the rubber until the last laps, but we deliberately chose this strategy because the reserve you put in the beginning always come in handy at the end. Max did well and felt comfortable from a distance.

Sergio was heavily fined yesterday and today he had an incredible first lap, was able to regain eight places and finish fifth. Tomorrow we have an interesting race. The Ferrari cars are fast, so we need to get off to a good start again, have a great first lap and stay calm.”