Horner on Singapore Grand Prix: 'Max managed the race extremely well'

Published on 22 September 2019 by Julien Lemmen

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing had high expectations ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend. Although the win wasn’t within reach, team principal Christian Horner is still satisfied with a third place finish for Max Verstappen and P6 for Alexander Albon.

“It was a very interesting and strategic race”, comments Horner after the race. “You could see early on that Leclerc in the Ferrari was managing the pace and eventually when everyone started racing from about Lap 15, the tyres quickly got out of shape for some of the front runners. So we decided to pit as early as we could with Max and we found him a gap on the same lap as Vettel which brought him out just behind Hulkenberg. That cost him a little bit of time and without that, maybe he would also have been able to get ahead of Leclerc after his pit stop, but with Mercedes opting to go longer, that gave him track position with P3. From there Max was able to manage the race extremely well despite the pressure from Lewis who was on a fresher set of tyres. He made no mistakes and did well to bring the car home for a podium.”

“For Alex, it was again a very mature race from him. He was at the back of the front queue of cars and he just had to be patient. He probably didn’t have a clear lap all afternoon but he managed the race and his tyres very well. P6 in your first Singapore Grand Prix with the big five finishing ahead is a very solid result.”