17/04/2016
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen: "A race full of action! At the start, I had a good first reaction but then I wasn't able to keep my position unfortunately. From then on it was very tricky, and the Safety Car didn't help as I lost even more ground with our double pit-stop, which meant I was at the back of the pack… But I stayed calm, overtook the rivals one by one and in the end, to cross the line in eighth position is something that if someone had told me at the beginning of the race I wouldn't have believed! I also think the team did a great job strategy wise, we were able to charge through the field and score some more points."
Carlos Sainz: "What an eventful and exciting race! There was plenty of action and I enjoyed it out there today - we had fights with Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, which are the battles we want to be having. A P9 in the end aren't that many points, but it's good to finish with both cars in the top 10 and keep adding to our tally. Maybe we could've finished a bit higher up, but we lost a lot of time behind Force India in the pit-lane during the first pit-stop… Overall, it was good fun out there today, we were able to do a lot of overtakes and our pace was decent. I'm now looking forward to our next race in Russia in two weeks' time!"
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "The Chinese Grand Prix was a very exciting race from start to finish. Both Max and Carlos did a really good start, but unfortunately Max lost some places in the first corner as he had to back off because of the crash between the two Ferraris. Carlos was in a good position until the Safety Car came out when he was then heavily stopped by Hulkenberg, who slowed down massively in the pit-lane and this caused us to lose a lot of places. Nevertheless, both drivers were able to catch-up and crossed the line in P8 and P9 - a very satisfying result. Both cars scored points, we showed that the car is competitive and that the team and drivers did a good job. I'd like to thank everyone for this and we are now looking forward to the race in Sochi where we also expect quite a good performance from our side.
"Today we saw that the midfield is very close together - it's a fight between Williams, Force India, Haas, ourselves and McLaren, who is also closing-up. This means that we have to be fully concentrated for the next races. Finally, I'd like to congratulate Daniil Kvyat for finishing on the podium. It's also great to see that four Red Bull cars are within the first nine top-finishers in today's race."
Check out our Sunday gallery, here.