Verstappen: The damage limitation was done

The Singapore Grand Prix was always going to be a tough weekend for Red Bull Racing and Verstappen, as they struggled there even when they were dominant in the previous years.

But the team managed to turn the RB20 around between Friday and Saturday, Verstappen delivering a solid qualifying to line up second on the grid alongside Norris but two tenths off the pace.

However, in the race, McLaren's pace was devastating and too much for the Dutchman to do anything about, and while his only chance during to out-drag Norris into Turn 1, that did not happen, and he had to manage his race to make sure he finished second, limiting the damage as much as possible, and simply live to fight another day.

"Coming in second today was a good result for us," the triple Formula 1 champion said in Red Bull's post race report.

"I think my start was quite, decent but there wasn't a lot of grip on that side so, it was difficult to have a go into turn one. The degradation was also quite high for me in the first stint.

"During the race, we didn't have the pace to fight for first unfortunately, so I managed the tyres and drove my own race.

"We know that this, of course, is not our strongest track," he added. "There is still a bit of work to do as we didn't have the pace that we would have liked, but I think the damage limitation was done.

"Of course we always want more, so we will go back and analyze what we can do better; we have a few weeks to try and find more performance and better balance in the car when we restart in Austin, so we can fight for a win again and not lose points.

"Ultimately, today we made a step forward. If you had told me last week that we would be P2, I would be happy with this, so I feel like this has been very positive for us," Verstappen concluded, as he saw his advantage over Norris slashed down to 52 points.

In the other Red Bull, Perez had a disappointing race from 13th to tenth, despite making up positions at the start, but then got stuck quite some time trying to overtake Haas' Nico Hulkenberg but to no avail while also struggling to pass Williams' Franco Colapinto earlier in the race.

Perez said in his team's race report: "Tonight's result was a shame, I think, we had a great start, but we lost an opportunity to undercut some cars, like we saw Carlos and Ferrari do.

"It was really unfortunate, after passing three cars at the start, it then became a tricky race. It was frustrating, and I think we missed out a bit on the strategy side. I struggled quite a lot with the car bouncing and the balance; it was just not settling down. I had a real issue with it. It became impossible to overtake Franco and Nico.

"We understand where the issues are," the Mexican pointed out. "There is a fix but this was a very difficult track for us. It is now time to look forward for the rest of the season, the upcoming tracks should be better for us and we are looking at a package, which should help us."

As for Red Bull boss Christian Horner, he commented: "The gap to Lando was significant in the first part of the race, and on the hard tyre we looked in better shape, but the gap was too big, and this track is historically very hard to overtake on.

"Max drove a strong race today and P2 was what we had," he admitted. "If you consider where we were a few weeks ago the progress is visible, and we have the better part of a month to put our heads down and make some progress before we head to Austin.

"There will be a lot of late nights in Milton Keynes. As a Team, we wanted to avoid a repeat of last year in Singapore, and the effort that went in to preparing for this race resulted in giving the drivers a better car and more confidence in the direction of development."

As for Perez's race, Horner added: "Checo unfortunately struggled to overtake during the race, he didn't feel like he had traction in key parts of the track, and P10 is what he could manage today.

"The McLaren is the benchmark car at the moment and we have a bit to catch up to at the moment, but we have the people, the ability, and the drive to do just that. We are still in the fight, and now have a few weeks to work on things before we go again," he concluded.