Reigning world champion Max Verstappen put on a breathtaking display at last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with the Dutchman having stormed through the field to claim second, despite having started 15th.
Whilst many were quick to congratulate Verstappen on his sensational recovery drive, the Dutch driver was visibly absolutely furious with the outcome of the race.
Up until his driveshaft failure in Q2, Verstappen had comfortably been the quickest driver at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, with many having expected him to go on and claim pole and the win.
Despite his failure, many still assumed that Verstappen would win the race, given his pace advantage over the field.
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Whilst he overcame almost every driver ahead of him with ease, the 25-year-old could do nothing to stop team-mate Sergio Pérez from claiming victory, with the Mexican having had an answer to Verstappen’s pace.
Second was still a great result for Verstappen; however, he insisted that his team “do better”, given that he felt like “I should have won”.
“We need to do better as a team, we can’t have problems like these,” Verstappen told Viaplay.
“Otherwise this would have been a very different race for me. At the end we limited the damage a little bit, but I should have won here.”
Verstappen’s unhappiness continued during the post-race press conference, where he admitted that he wasn’t “happy” to finish where he did, before once again calling on Red Bull to ensure that both his car and Pérez’s “are reliable”.
“Everyone is happy but personally, I’m not happy because I’m not here to be second,” Verstappen said.
“When you’re fighting for a championship and especially when it looks like it’s just between two cars, we have to make sure that also the two cars are reliable.”
Verstappen’s recovery drive does mean that Red Bull have still started the 2023 F1 season with back-to-back 1-2 finishes, highlighting just how dominant the RB19 is.
Pérez, though, has admitted that Red Bull aren’t quite as strong as many believe, with the Mexican having revealed that if it wasn’t for their huge advantage towards the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix, then both cars would’ve likely retired due to a mechanical fault.
The Saudi Arabian GP winner revealed that Red Bull do indeed have “a lot of reliability concerns”, suggesting that both Pérez and Verstappen might have to endure further unexpected failures in the next few rounds.
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“We were in a lucky position in Bahrain but otherwise if we had to push to the end, we probably wouldn’t make the race,” Pérez revealed.
“So, there are a lot of reliability concerns at the moment but hopefully they don’t hit us anytime soon.
“It’s going to hit us at some point but obviously we need to keep working on that.”