25/08/2024
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen: "Today the start was good and we got a lead in front, which was a positive start. However, once I was overtaken it became about managing my own race as I know I didn't have the pace to catch Lando.
"The car balance has been difficult this weekend, we just didn't have the pace and we struggled with our tyres. I tried my best but it just didn't work today and we had quite a big gap to Lando. We didn't have our best weekend and we will go back and analyse what we can do better. It is my 200th race and it was nice to drive in front of my home crowd. Those races have gone by quickly and when I grew up this was something I thought about; I imagine I will look back and be proud of this moment. It was great to be here in front of home Grand Prix and in front of fans, but it is a shame as you always want to win for them."
Sergio Perez: "I had a great start but unfortunately was squeezed into turn one and then lost a position to Charles. In the beginning things were looking really good, but we just didn't have the pace to keep up, as the other cars started to pull ahead. We were struggling with the grip on the hard tyre and balance all race. We have a lot of work to do, but it has been a good weekend in terms of understanding the car issues and we can go forward to take this as the base and to develop from here. I also feel like this is a very extreme scenario with the tail wind corners and we struggled more than other teams, Monza will be a different kind of track and we hope more positive. We will keep our heads down and be fully focused on getting to the bottom of our issues, we've got a lot of work to do to understand where the pace has gone, especially in the race, so hopefully we can get back up to speed in Monza next week."
Christian Horner: "Firstly, congratulations to McLaren and Lando, their car was in a different league today. We did everything we could and Max converted P2 into a lead at the start, but you could see he couldn't compete with Lando's pace. In hindsight the gamble we made with more downforce, following very little Friday running, perhaps wasn't the best route. We need to understand where the deficit is to McLaren and how we can improve performance on our car, we have some idea and will work hard to do that. We are going to have to respond and I am confident we have the strength and depth to do that. Max has a 70-point lead in the Drivers' Championship but we have to keep scoring as a Team and on the days we can't win you have to finish second. Checo had a solid drive too and looking at his pace he looked strong, particularly in the second half of the race, which is positive. So, we have plenty of work to do but we have learnt a lot of lessons this weekend that can be very valuable, we have tried some things on the car that we have good data from to assess. We need to make sure we use that; it is time to digest what happened here and try to bounce back in Monza."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Zandvoort here.