1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 2. George Russell (Mercedes), 3. Carlos Sainz (Williams)
TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by James Hinchcliffe)
Q: Carlos Sainz, a brilliant qualifying lap yesterday set you up for a podium finish today — your first for Williams. You said on the radio on the way in that it is the best moment of your career. Just tell us what this moment means to you.
Carlos SAINZ: Yeah. Honestly, I cannot describe how happy I am, how good this feels. This is even better than my first ever podium that I did. We’ve been fighting hard all year and finally today, we just proved that when we have the speed — we’ve had it all year — and everything comes together, we can do some amazing things together. And yeah, today we nailed the race. Not one mistake, and we managed to beat a lot of cars that yesterday I wasn’t expecting to beat.
Q: We talked a little bit earlier in the week about how you’ve had pace at a lot of the races in the last few — it’s just been a failure to convert for a various amount of reasons. How proud are you of yourself on track, and the team, of course, for their ability to convert from a strategy standpoint today?
CS: Yeah. I’m extremely proud of everyone at Williams for pushing through our very difficult year. I think we’ve proven to everyone the massive step that we took compared to last year. We are on the rise; we are in the right direction. Unfortunately, with me, we’ve had a lot of bad luck, a lot of incidents — very difficult to convert all that pace into results. But now I understand why it all happened, because the first podium needed to come like this. It’s just life, you know? Life just sometimes brings you those bad moments to give you a very nice one, and this stays much better than any other thing that I was expecting. So, just a life lesson, to keep believing, keep trusting yourself, your team around you, your procedures, everything that you’re doing — because sooner or later, it always pays off.
Q: Cool. We’ll go and join with your team. Congratulations.
CS: Thank you very much.
Q: P2 for George Russell today. You said before the race that a podium was a possibility, and you had incredible pace on those Hard tyres. We even heard you pre-empt a message from the pit wall to extend that stint. Was that the key today to get ahead of Carlos?
George RUSSELL: Yeah. I mean, firstly, congrats to Carlos and Williams. Amazing result for them. I think for us, really happy to be back on the podium. It’s been a bit of a rough weekend for me personally, but the car was great. Lewis came in P4 as well, so happy with that.
Q: You talked about a rough week for you personally — a bit under the weather. So how tough was it to sort of focus, and how are you feeling after 51 laps?
GR: Yeah, I was pretty glad when I saw the chequered flag, to be honest. I was fortunate — I felt much better today than I felt on Friday and Saturday. So yeah, looking forward to a bit of rest now. But as I said, just happy with the result. And for us as a team, trying to beat Ferrari in the Constructors’ was a good step towards that.
Q: Absolutely. Well, congratulations. Go get some rest. Max, 67th win of your career, second in a row. That looked like Max 2023 — as straightforward as it gets. Did it feel that easy from inside the car?
Max VERSTAPPEN: They’re all a bit different, but I think this weekend has been incredible for us. Of course, last weekend was already great. But yeah, for us to win here again is just fantastic. And I think also in the race, the car was working really well. On both of the compounds, we had clean air all the time, and you could then look after your tyres. And yeah, it was pretty straightforward. Of course, it’s not easy around here — very windy today, so the car is always moving around a lot. But yeah, of course, incredibly happy with this performance.
Q: After the conditions we saw yesterday and all the problems in qualifying — you mentioned the wind, similar conditions today. How surprised were you that there weren’t more incidents, that we didn’t have more Safety Cars or even a red flag? Is that the drivers just learning from yesterday, or was it maybe not as hard today?
MV: I think in the race, always, you have to be a little bit more careful, right? Also, with tyre management and stuff, you want to make the one-stop work. So I think everyone was a bit more cautious with that anyway. Plus, of course, the compounds that we’re running today — Medium and Hard — they weren’t really used that much up until today, and that all helped. And yeah, for sure I was happy that there were not too many Safety Cars.
Q: Max, two wins on the trot. This Red Bull car seems to have really taken a step forward the last few weeks. Are you confident that this sort of pace, this sort of relative competitiveness can continue all the way to the end of the season?
MV: Difficult to say at the moment, but for sure the last two race weekends have been amazing for us. Singapore — completely different challenge again with the high downforce. So we’ll see what we can do there.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Very well done, Max. A very dominant victory for you today. Just how sweet was the performance?
MV: I think overall, just a great weekend for us. I think for sure, you know, starting up front was key, especially in the beginning, just managing your tyres to go long. But, yeah, overall, very happy with how the race was going. I mean, I could go very long in that first stint. The car was doing pretty much what I wanted it to do. Just how much you commit, right, to push around here, which is not always easy with the layout of the track, the wind as well. It was quite tough today with that. But, yeah, we just stayed out until basically everyone pitted. And then there were only a few laps left on the medium, clearing a few backmarkers, which took a bit of time. But after that, just bringing it home. And for us, that’s another just great result. A bit unusual. This season has been really swinging left and right, but at least now two weekends in a row, it’s been going really well.
Q: You say it’s been swinging left and right. Was this the best the car has felt all season?
MV: I guess together with Monza. Yep. Monza has never really been a particularly strong track for us, so to do that, that was already a big plus. And I guess all in all for me here in Baku, it’s been alright, but never amazing — apart from maybe ’21, ’22, I guess. But the rest has always been a bit difficult. So, yeah, to have a weekend like this, it was very important.
Q: How much of a risk was it to start the race on the Hard tyre given that you hadn’t run on it up until that point?
MV: Well, not so much from knowing how good it would be. It’s more like the start or an untimely Safety Car. So as soon as we crossed, like, 20 laps into the race, I was a bit happier, but it was a bit of a risk. I think it’s a bit unusual, of course, when you’re on pole, to start on the hardest compound that is available. But we did it, and I think it was the right call. We said before the race, well, one way or another one strategy will work, and we’ll come out of the race happy with it. Luckily, we chose the right one.
Q: Now, Max, you’re only 69 points behind Oscar Piastri in the Drivers’ Championship. Given the recent upswing in competitiveness, does it give you a smidgen of hope that the title is within range again?
MV: I mean, I don’t rely on hope. But it’s seven rounds left – 69 points is a lot. So I personally don’t think about it. I just go race by race, what I have been doing basically the whole season — just trying to do the best we can, try to score the most points that we can. And then after Abu Dhabi, we’ll know.
Q: And given where the car is now, do you have a little bit more hope going to Singapore, a race where Red Bull’s never won?
MV: Well, I have never won. Red Bull has won, right? We’ll see. It’s completely different. High downforce. A lot of deg on the tyres, so we’ll see what happens. I really don’t know at the moment.
Q: Alright. Very well done today. Thank you very much, Max. George, let’s come to you. Great race by you. What was the key to the climb up to P2 today?
GR: I think it was just staying out of trouble, to be honest. I don’t think we had a spectacular weekend, to be honest. And, obviously, Carlos just did an amazing job, and Liam also did a great job yesterday qualifying ahead of us. But all of the cars who we ordinarily fight sort of made mistakes or underperformed, and we sort of picked up the pieces. So, obviously, really happy to finish P2 all things considered. But also, I think the cool temps helped us a little bit. So just good to capitalise on all of those things.