Track Interviews - Conducted by Jenson Button
Max Verstappen, once again the winner of the Sprint race here in Austin. I mean, it couldn't have gone any better, could it?
Max Verstappen: Yeah. I mean, the start was good. Then, of course, there was a Safety Car because of the Turn 1 incident. Then it took a few laps after the Safety Car to have decent pace, so we need to figure out what was going on there. But nevertheless, we won the Sprint, which is, of course, the most important. But, of course, already looking ahead to tomorrow. I do think we need to be a bit better in race trim to be able to fight the McLarens, because we haven't seen anything of them.
I heard you on the radio - I think you said the rear isn't very good. I think those were the words you used?
MV: Kind of, yes.
Is there something that you can do? Do you understand what you can do to try and improve that for qualifying and the race?
MV: Well, we'll have a look. Of course, we have some ideas what we can do, and then hopefully, we'll just stick a bit better tomorrow.
George, P6 to P2 - not a bad result. And nice little lunge there down the inside of Max.
George Russell: Yeah. I mean, I knew you don't get many opportunities with Max. I saw half a chance and sent it. I was probably too far behind, but glad I gave it a go. P2 for sure was better than we could have expected. And, yeah, some decent points.
I need to ask you about Turn 1. Obviously, there's a lot of talk about the incident at Turn 1. What could you see from your view?
GR: I mean, I was on the outside, and I fully sent it. And then I realised everyone on the inside fully sent it as well. Carlos and I were like, I don't think that's going to end too nicely. I've not seen it - I only saw it from my perspective - but it looked like it was sort of three cars into one, which doesn't often go.
Carlos, you're making a habit of this. Second podium in three races. I know it's a Sprint, but still, amazing.
Carlos Sainz: Oh. We didn't put one of the best of starts, but then we took the outside line into Turn 1, which was definitely... Yeah, we definitely had a solid race. We had solid pace from there on. The Ferraris were quick behind, but I kept them under control and we brought home the P3, which tastes really good.
Something seems to have clicked with you this year, the last few races in the car. What's changed, and what's given you this confidence to be fighting for podiums every weekend?
CS: Nothing. We're just getting a little bit more lucky, and things stopped happening to us. But I've had this pace all year. It's just for the first half of the year I wasn't able to show it and to prove it. But now that things are running a lot smoother, I'm just doing everything that I was doing in the first half. It's just things are clicking. And, yeah, just happy to show what we can do as a team, what I can do. The car was great yesterday in quali and today in the race. We lack a bit compared to these guys - obviously we cannot fight them - but we're still in the mix. So it's good to see.
Press Conference
Max, just a summary of your race first of all, please.
MV: It was OK. I mean, the start was good, but then I think the overall pace throughout the race, I expected it to be a little bit better. So that's something we need to work on, especially if the McLarens are not out on lap one tomorrow. I do think that if they would have raced today, it would have been very tough to keep them behind. So that is something that, yeah, for tomorrow, we need to work on. But nevertheless, I take it. We'll take the points. It's positive. And now we just need to look ahead, you know, how we can improve a little bit the pace.
George, same question to you. Just sum it all up, please.
GR: Yeah, obviously I just stayed out of trouble at Turn 1 and, yeah, fought hard in those first laps after the Safety Car to try and get past Max. Obviously I had half a chance. I knew that would probably be my last chance, so yeah, sent it. Obviously I just couldn't quite make the corner. But, yeah, P2. I think similar to what Max said, it was decent, it was okay. But if the McLarens were there, I think they'd have probably been ahead of us.
Carlos, same for you. Just a summary.
CS: Okay. Yep. Good race, honestly. Surprised that we could hold the Ferraris behind, especially because at some point, they were super quick, catching on me. But then once I got - I think Lewis was 1.2, 1.4 seconds - and he stopped making the progress, and I could keep them at a comfortable margin. We need to improve a bit the race pace, especially low speed feels like we have a bit of margin to improve, hopefully for tomorrow. But the car has been giving me confidence all weekend, and hopefully we can keep building on it because it's been a very solid weekend, given the fact that we missed practice, and we still managed to put it P7 on the grid and podium today.
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