Toyoharu Tanabe
Technical Director, Honda Racing F1
"The first ever Qatar Grand Prix turned out to be an exciting race for us, with both Red Bull Racing Honda drivers doing a lot of overtaking. Max, who had an unfortunate grid penalty, immediately moved up the order from starting seventh to get up to second place quite quickly to finish on the podium, while Checo also produced a strong drive to go from eleventh to fourth. Today, we really got everything out of our package. Things did not go so well for Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda. Pierre inherited a front row grid position because of penalties for others, but neither he nor Yuki, who started eighth, had enough race pace today and finished outside the points. It was particularly disappointing as they had both been so quick all weekend up until today. In general, this was not an easy weekend for us, but the result was important, as Max still leads the Drivers’ classification and Red Bull has closed the gap to Mercedes in the Constructors.’ Now, we have a one week gap without a race, so we will work hard with both our teams to see how we can improve our performance for the final two races of the seasons. Finally, congratulations to our former Honda colleague Fernando Alonso on his podium finish. He drove a great race, showing excellent tyre management skills."
Max Verstappen
Red Bull Racing Honda
Race : 2nd
"I’m of course happy with the result today. This weekend has been quite difficult for us as a Team and we are still lacking pace, I tried everything I could after the five-place grid penalty so to finish in second and score the fastest lap is really good. I had an exciting start and I knew that the first few laps were really important, I had a good launch and I was fairly quickly back in to second place, from there I tried to keep the gap small and that worked out quite well. I had fun today, especially when going for the fastest lap. It’s a shame that Checo didn’t make it to the podium today, he scored good points for the Team. I’m also happy for Fernando, we all know how good he is, there’s no doubt about that. For now, we need to stay focused, there are still two races left to go and a lot of things can happen, anything is possible."
Sergio Perez
Red Bull Racing Honda
Race : 4th
"We managed to recover from qualifying and moved through the grid quickly from P11, we were in a very good position to be on the podium but unfortunately it didn’t work out. It was a very exhausting race, I was flat out the whole time, overtaking and pushing. We were changing our strategy throughout the race; at some stages we were going for one stop and at others two, but others’ tyres were exploding so we had to protect ours to prevent getting a puncture and maximise our position in the Constructor’s Championship. I think we had the podium in our pocket but for the second week running a virtual safety car has potentially cost us. I don’t know if without it we would have definitely caught up with Fernando, but we would have been close. It is a bit of a shame but we managed to minimise the damage from Saturday and Valtteri didn’t score any points which is a big benefit to us. Ultimately, I think from a Team point of view we had to play it safe with the constructors in mind. Where we have finished today is a good result for the Team and the longer-term picture, we just have to keep pushing hard and improve our performance in the next two races. Now I am looking forward to Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi because we are going to give it everything, we have a big chance to come on top of the Constructor’s Championship, there is five points in it, it’s all to play for and that is the target."
Pierre Gasly
Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda
Race : 11th
"It’s a really frustrating day. Both Yuki and myself started in the top 10, but went massively backwards during the race. I was giving everything I had inside the car today, but we were just too slow. Even at the start I wasn’t able to stick with Alonso, so we tried to go for an aggressive two stop strategy, but the pace just wasn’t there. It didn’t work today, which is really disappointing. After the incident yesterday we changed some parts on the car, I don’t know if these could have impacted our race pace today, but we’ll have to go away and review everything, as I just can’t explain it right now."
Yuki Tsunoda
Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda
Race : 13th
"That was a particularly tough race, I struggled a lot on the soft tyre, especially in the first stint. We really weren’t expecting that, as overall this week we’ve had really good pace, but today in the race it dropped off, so we’ve got to look at the data and figure out why that was. It’s a real shame, as Alpine had a very good race today, so we need a strong comeback for the last two races."