Max Verstappen: It couldn’t have gone better!

In Japan, the Red Bull team won the winning double, but while Max Verstappen was clearly the fastest, his teammate complained of balance problems.

Max Verstappen (1st): “Everything went great! Of course it was important to stay ahead in the beginning, and as the race progressed it seemed that the car was working better and better. I don’t know, maybe this was because the clouds were starting to thicken and it was getting cooler.

Pit stops and tactics were perfectly fine; it couldn’t have gone better. We had a small accident at the previous race, but on this circuit we are again ahead of everyone, and that is very nice. There are great fans in Japan and it’s great that we were able to satisfy both them and the Honda drivers with a win!”

Sergio Perez (2nd): “It was a good weekend for our team. Firstly, in my opinion, if you have to start again after starting, this always complicates the task, therefore it is quite difficult to maintain concentration for a long time. But everything turned out fine and my second start even went a little better, although not good enough to overtake Max. I think we then had to pay for the fact that in the first part of the race the balance of the car was not ideal, so we could not keep the pace high.

Lando Norris was ahead of us at the pit stop and in the second stint I had to attack too hard. But when I switched to hard tires it became much more comfortable. The good pace was restored, but I think this was influenced to some extent by the fact that there were some balance problems in the first segment.

I think we are in good shape now. If you remember, last year the Japanese weekend was probably the worst of the entire season for me. But if the car now allows us to maintain such a high pace on a circuit with so many fast and medium corners, then I think we can count on good results everywhere.”