Max Verstappen believes his chance of winning the Singapore Grand Prix disappeared with his start and that even a better-handling car would not have made a difference.
The defending champion started on soft tires compared to the mediums used by the rest of the top seven, but failed to gain a position off the line and had to settle into second place. As the race unfolded, Verstappen was regularly complaining about his car’s balance and how difficult it was to drive, although he doesn’t believe that cost him victory.
After race winner George Russell stated he thought Verstappen would have been victorious if he took the lead at the start, Verstappen added: “Yeah, I think so too.
“It’s just super hard to pass around here, but I didn’t take the lead at Turn 1. We knew that the inside just was a lot worse for start performance. For whatever reason, it took a step back even compared to last year, so it’s a bit of a shame.
“I knew already yesterday that it would be very tough to even keep the position on the same tires. Then, of course, with the [chance of] rain as well, we opted to go for the soft, just hoping that first of all we could keep our position and maybe have a shot at fighting for P1 into Turn 1. But once I didn’t achieve that, it was a proper management race, trying to keep those soft tires alive long enough to bring it to an acceptable lap to stop.
“Then I knew that even on a hard tire, it was still a long way to go. I think my tires were six, seven laps older than George’s and Lando’s [Norris] more or less. So, yeah, it was not easy out there. Plus the whole race, I was struggling a lot with the shifting – downshifting and upshifting – so that was not helping. And the balance probably was not where I wanted it to be.
“So I think second was just the maximum that we could do today. But at the same time, even if the balance would have been miles better, second was still the best we could have done if we stayed P2 into Turn 1. That’s just how it goes around here. When nothing crazy happens with a safety car or an opportunity, then that is just your position.”
Despite admitting he had hoped his car would be more compliant during the race in Singapore given recent gains, Verstappen says he’s not overly concerned that he was faced with handling issues.
“I think over the last few races we’ve definitely improved a lot. A few things that we have done throughout the weekend, that’s what we have to probably look at again for the coming races. But it’s nothing shocking or that we are lost about why maybe some pace has disappeared compared to what we would have liked. It’s just some stuff that we need to analyze, and hopefully next weekend we can do a little bit better.”