For a long time Max Verstappen was in the lead of the Brazilian Grand Prix, but the unleashed Lewis Hamilton managed to give everyone the best with his super-fast Mercedes W12. The Briton struggled past his Red Bull rival, after which he rode unthreatened to victory.
Nevertheless, Verstappen gets a lot of praise from his team boss, Christian Horner, after the race at Interlagos. In conversation with Sky Sports the Briton is enthusiastic about the way in which his pupil managed to keep the much faster Hamilton behind for some time.
“It’s always hard to take a loss when you’ve been in the lead for so long, but we didn’t even expect that. Max did a great job keeping Lewis behind for so long. We saw on Saturday that the speed of that car was unstoppable.”
For Red Bull it was therefore simply a matter of limiting the damage as much as possible. With a second place for Verstappen and the fastest lap by Perez, that has been achieved, according to Horner. “So for us it was a matter of damage limitation.”
“Congratulations to Lewis and Mercedes, because they were very, very, very fast here. It was important to us that Checo had the fastest lap yet, so it was really limiting the damage.
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Mercedes has a new weapon in the house
According to Horner, it was simply an impossible task for the Dutchman to keep Hamilton behind. “It was unbearable. We defended ourselves as hard as we could. Max tried his best and he raced hard, but there was just no chance today. We had highlights in the US and Mexico, and here we had to take a bitter pill swallow. We’ll get back into the fight in a week.”
The team boss of the Austrian team realizes that Mercedes will have an enormously strong weapon in the coming weeks if Hamilton’s engine continues to run at full speed as in Brazil. On the circuits in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, that could work in favor of the big rival, according to Horner.
“The straight line speed of them was really impressive. They have a rear wing that they use in Monaco too, so it’s very, very impressive. Being a driver, Max, he can’t defend against that. If Mercedes were at 0.9 seconds They’re already on our side at the end of the straight, so that’s a very potent weapon, especially with some of those fast circuits to come.”
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