30/08/2020
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen: "I love this track but the race was not really the most exciting from my side. It wasn't really much of a fight and I just tried to do my own race and maximise the result. On the medium tyre I didn't have a lot of grip and then on the hard I was initially trying to put pressure on Valtteri but he was told to speed up and was able to build a good gap, so after that it was a bit lonely. There was not much action up front unfortunately and the tyre wear was quite high so we couldn't really push. I had some vibrations towards the end of the race so I really had to manage my tyres, I took no risks and brought it home. Overall, we had a good weekend and the car balance was nice so we can be pleased with that. We are not here to finish third and we want more but it is always good to be on the podium."
Alex Albon: "It was a frustrating race and it was pretty tricky to do anything. We knew before the race that the Renaults would be hard to overtake with their low downforce and straightline speed and that proved to be the case. I felt pretty good at the start on the soft tyre and then we managed to jump Ocon in the pits when we changed to mediums, thanks to a good stop from the boys in the garage. I don't think we expected as much degradation as we got on that compound and maybe they weren't the right choice in the end but I pushed as hard as I could to try and do the overtakes and the tyres just dropped off. We'll have a look at it to see what we can learn before our focus shifts towards Monza in a few days but it's nice to move up to fourth in the championship which is a sign we're making progress."
Christian Horner, Team Principal: "It was a tricky race today with tyre management but we managed to get solid points on the board with both cars. Max didn't quite have the pace to fight the Mercedes with tyre degradation in the second half of the race proving to be significant, so we were weighing up whether to one or two stop. Daniel's straightline speed was obviously very strong so we opted to stick with a one stop and Max managed to bring the car home for his sixth podium in a row. Meanwhile, Alex lost a place at the start to Ocon but managed to get it back through his pit stop when we elected to put him on the medium tyre which we thought was the best compound to attack the Renaults. He did a good job today defending hard throughout the Grand Prix but unfortunately the Renaults were just too fast on the straights with their lower downforce configuration and he lost P5 on the final lap. Alex is now up to fourth in the Drivers' Championship and he's had a very solid weekend so now we'll continue to work hard as a Team before we arrive in Monza next week."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Spa, here.