“It was hard racing but good racing” – Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen saw his championship lead drop to just fourteen points at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, after second place finish behind championship rival Lewis Hamilton. Sergio Pérez’s run of consecutive podiums came to an end with fourth place finish at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace Circuit.

Verstappen endured another titanic battle with Hamilton, this time with both drivers coming out of it unscathed, just! Verstappen took the lead of the race after making a better start than pole-sitter Valtteri Bottas. The Dutchman extended his lead to almost five seconds, whilst Hamilton was charging through the top ten after starting in the middle of the pack.

It wasn’t long till Hamilton was up to second place and only a couple of car lengths behind the championship leader, as the battle begun to commence. Neither of drivers pit-stops could break the pair apart, with Hamilton clearly having more pace than Verstappen in front. Hamilton’s first attempt at overtaking Verstappen came around the outside of Turn Four. Verstappen however appeared to run both drivers off the circuit though, and kept hold of the lead.

Only a couple laps later though and Verstappen finally dropped to second, with Hamilton this time completing the move down the back-straight before Turn Four, the Dutchman had no answer and had to settle for second place on the podium.

Verstappen enjoyed the race and believed the racing between the pair was fair, you’d like to think we will see more fighting between the two in the remaining three races.

“I knew today would be difficult, but I did everything I could, we were just lacking a little bit. At least it was a fun race, of course I would have liked to have won but realistically I think this was a good result. Lewis and I were fighting for position on multiple occasions, I think it was hard racing but good racing and that’s how it should be. I was hoping for a little bit more performance but this result is definitely the maximum we could do.

“Top speed wise it was tough to defend, you can clearly see when they take a fresh engine that it gives them a bit more power, so hopefully that will die down over the coming races. There are three races coming up that will be completely different again, so we’ll see how it goes.”

“The luck wasn’t with us” – Sergio Pérez

It was an unlucky fourth place for Mexican Sergio Pérez, the Red Bull Racing driver did well to hold Hamilton behind for several laps, before being overtaken by the world champion into Turn One.

The Mexican sat comfortably in third place before a massive stroke of bad luck. The VSC was deployed just after Pérez made his first pit-stop, giving fourth placed Bottas, a cheap pit-stop, putting him ahead of the Mexican. After this moment Pérez’s race was somewhat lonely, as his run of consecutive podium finishes came to a disappointing end.

Pérez is disappointed to have lost the podium position so cheaply but is looking forward to the final race of the triple header in Qatar.

“It was close today and it was fun, but I am not here to have fun, I am here to deliver. I had a great start but then it was very difficult to hold Lewis back, I tried my best to hold onto him but I couldn’t, he was flying! Then we were ahead of Bottas by two seconds, we had the position and we had the podium but two laps later the virtual safety car came in.

“That timing was extremely unlucky for us and it worked perfectly for him, he managed to do the undercut and then pull five seconds away from us. It is a bit of a shame we lost the podium but I was able to build a big enough gap to the Ferrari in fifth to pit and go for fastest lap, which is an important point for the team. That straight-line speed of the Mercedes is just unbelievable, we were not able to match them and today they were on another planet.

“Ultimately it is a good result for us today, I don’t believe there is much we could have done differently, it’s just a shame because we should have finished ahead of Bottas had it not been for the VSC. Today the luck wasn’t with us but there are still three races to go and everything to play for so we will keep pushing. Now we look forward to Qatar and hopefully there we can be competitive.”

Credit: Lars Baron/ Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool