Max Verstappen had just three hours’ sleep the night before his Mexican Grand Prix victory, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner revealed.
Verstappen, who topped every practice session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, was stunned by team mate Daniel Ricciardo who beat him to pole position by less than three-hundredths of a second in the final moments of qualifying.“You could see that he was pretty upset about it,” said Horner when asked by RaceFans about Verstappen’s response to the defeat.
“It wasn’t the best second run in Q3, it was an outstanding lap from Daniel.
“[Verstappen] told me he had three hours’ sleep last night, I think it played that much on his mind.”
Horner said Verstappen’s start to the race, where he fought off Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton to take the lead, showed his renewed determination. “From the moment that he turned up this morning you could see there was only going to be one guy coming through turns one, two and three in the lead.
“He made a great start. Daniel dropped the clutch a little too quickly and then over-compensated with the throttle and picked up quite a bit of wheelspin.
“You could see Hamilton was ahead in the [turn one] braking zone so effectively Max had to re-pass him. But it was a day Hamilton was unlikely to be taking too much risk, particularly with Verstappen on the inside of him.
“So as soon as he emerged from those first three corners in the lead the rest of it he controlled brilliantly.”
Red Bull gave Verstappen a second pit stop as a precaution but inspection of his tyres showed he didn’t need to come in a second time, said Horner.
“We stopped him again after Lewis and Sebastian [Vettel] had stopped just to cover the eventuality of a Safety Car or whatever. But theoretically, the tyres that came off his car we could see would get to the end of the race.
“Which then gave us the confidence to leave Daniel out, despite seeing the marking-up on the tyre, and say let’s go with the track position and see if we can fight Sebastian to the end of the race.”
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David BR (@david-br)
29th October 2018, 1:24
Brilliant response from Verstappen. He got a load of flak here yesterday for not ‘accepting’ the loss of pole, but it was clear to me that he blamed himself for losing, not the car, still less Ricciardo. The evidence is there in the fact he mulled over the defeat and came up with the perfect answer (to his own self-questioning) in the actual race. I just really like and admire that, and it baffles me others can take such issue with it. Oh well.
JohnH (@johnrkh)
29th October 2018, 2:46
(@david-br)
I don’t know…sounds like he’s blaming the car to me.
The “problem” being Ricciardo? Interesting choice of words no?
:)
David BR (@david-br)
29th October 2018, 9:24
Seriously, drivers aren’t going to lose sleep and motivate themselves because of engine problems. He knew he could have made the difference, his Q3 laps weren’t the best. If you take what drivers say to the media at face value, it’s an option, true, good luck with that.
Nitzo (@webtel)
29th October 2018, 10:10
@david-br
I understand you cant take everything at face value. But blaming the engine at every single opportunity is unprofessional to say the least. Here’s a transcript from the post race press conference:
Q: (Jaap de Groot – De Telegraaf) For Max. You just said you were mainly disappointed yesterday because the car didn’t deliver in the way you wanted…
MV: …no, the car did. The engine didn’t.
Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS) Also for Max. Does this make… this victory also a bit a Renault victory, a revenge? Because it’s better than yesterday. The engine also gave you the victory?
MV: How do you know it’s better?
(Louis Dekker – NOS): I don’t know, I’m asking.
MV: No.
David BR (@david-br)
29th October 2018, 11:21
@webtel Well, he’s right though about the engine being a liability, it’s the car design that gave them the performance advantage, the engine threatened completion of the race. Unless the fact the engine was working was some kind of new special Renault feature! But the point is that in qualifying, a better run could have given him pole, irrespective of their engine or other car problems. Horner pretty much confirmed that too (and suggested Max had lost sleep because of that fact). That was my initial point. Yes he goes on about the engine being rubbish. It probably makes no difference either way whether he’s nice about it or not, and I have no problem with him telling it like it is and Renault should be apologizing for providing defective goods, not deflecting and denying as they have done.
Nitzo (@webtel)
29th October 2018, 12:43
@david-br
Credit where credit is due. Yes they has a fantastic car–but i am going to speculate here: Verstappen may not have done so well with a Merc. Let us also not forget the fact that he was 15+s ahead of Ferrari. So RB-Merc or RB-Fer needn’t have necessarily resulted in a positive outcome for max. Hulk’s finish is a testimony to Renault’s performance.
Also, i do agree that Renault have been supplying imperfect goods.
But bashing your supplier in public is not helping anyone. (The more you bash, the lesser they are going to care.)
On a lighter note,
Now was this the case or was it because of the ‘fear/concern’ that the PU might fail ? I believe Max got serious about this ‘threat’ only after Daniel’s failure. I can argue, that they must have been more concerned when Carlos retired. I dont know the specifics–they may have conversed. Nevertheless, Renault have been poor throughout.
David BR (@david-br)
29th October 2018, 13:16
@webtel True, I think Red Bull could do worse than give a few diplomacy lessons to Max before the Honda era starts :)
MacLeod (@macleod)
29th October 2018, 8:10
He was blaming the engine (mapping problems) so he had to drive with those switch off so he as driver must do the most work.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
29th October 2018, 2:17
The lost pole might be a tiny blemish on a terrific weekend, but he made up for it in spades with that scorching start and mature defence. Very impressive to see his mature driving at this end of the season, especially in contrast to some of his blunders at the other end.
Mercedes and Ferrari must definitely be heaving a sigh of relief at not having provided a PU to RBR (although that’s a shame for us fans).
Patrick (@paeschli)
29th October 2018, 6:35
Kudos to Red Bull for another brilliant strategy
They would have finished one-two if it wasn’t for the reliability
Phylyp (@phylyp)
29th October 2018, 7:02
Didn’t Horner say that they were planning some side-by-side driving to prevent rivals lunging ahead at the start? I wonder just what transpired in that discussion, and whether it might have impacted Ricciardo’s abysmal start.
It’s his good fortune that the Mercs were hungry and decide to snack on their tyres that he got back to second, but then fate has a cruel sense of humour, given what transpired after that.
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
29th October 2018, 8:51
I think Ricciardo’s start pretty much voided that: he was lucky in a way to come out third after the first few corners, Bottas swamping Vettel and not allowing a pass. Think the plan will have been to control the race (Multi 21?) after a few laps.
erikje
29th October 2018, 11:45
But it not only was his start… on his way tot the start he already made mistakes . It seems Ricciardo was very nervous and i can imagine that by now.
JohnH (@johnrkh)
29th October 2018, 7:14
Even though I think Verstappen drove well over the weekend. I don’t think even Horner would ask someone to take part in synchronised driving with him :))
Phylyp (@phylyp)
29th October 2018, 8:05
@johnrkh – What? He ain’t no Vettel! ;-)
Jere (@jerejj)
29th October 2018, 10:30
And yet he still managed to pull out a flawless performance even with only three hours of sleep.
Robbie (@robbie)
29th October 2018, 13:40
Sure can’t knock his determination.