Max Verstappen delivered one of his more mature performances to claim second place at the Singapore Grand Prix, at one point running Lewis Hamilton close for the lead but lamented the lack of horsepower when he needed it on the night.
A day earlier the Dutchman delivered a masterful lap, in the same league as Hamilton's extraordinary pole-winning lap, to claim second place on the grid for the race at Marina Bay Circuit, on a night Ferrari were expected to shine.
Fast forward to Sunday, after losing second place to Sebastian Vettel early on in the race Verstappen stalked the German and when Ferrari pitted their man early the Dutchman went into 'full gas' mode, together with smart thinking from the Red Bull pitwall he delivered the overcut which netted second place back, where #33 remained unchallenged until the end.
After the race, Verstappen beamed to reporters, "It was not bad. The car was just very good, but we already know that. It’s a shame regarding the first lap; you can clearly see we are missing top speed. If we had come out on track behind of Vettel, we would have finished third."
"From there on the team had a great strategy so we could get back into second. Basically, we drove our own race and tried to follow Lewis a bit. At the end we knew second was going to be the result, so we just had to bring the car home."
It was not all plain sailing for Verstappen who was plagued with niggles all weekend, "I didn’t have a perfect getaway after my pit stop, but also behind the safety car the car had some issues and even some false neutrals. The car is then not able to find a gear, so I almost stalled."
"I needed to shift very quickly in order to get back into a gear. During the race, shifting down was also very difficult. We had a lot of problems but, all in all, I am very happy with second place.”
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