Max Verstappen finished third in the Italian Grand prix but was demoted to fifth following a five-second time penalty for causing a collision with Valtteri Bottas. His Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo did not manage to get to the finish because of a clutch problem.
Max Verstappen
“I think if you look at the car performance, we’ve done a really good job in being that competitive on this track. I don’t think it could have been better for us and finishing third on the road was a good result. Unfortunately, we had a penalty and I was put back to fifth. I think I gave Valtteri enough space on the left so he didn’t need to go off the track. The rule says that as long as you give the other driver a car width space, it should be enough. That’s what I did, but he clipped my wheel at Turn 1 and he had to go straight on.”
“I don’t agree with the penalty, but the decision is taken and we can’t do anything about it”
“Of course, after I heard about the penalty I was even more determined to keep my track position. I’ve tried to do the best race I could. And I had to fight hard for it as we are so much slower on the straights. Before the race, I thought fifth would have been the best possible result for us. But after a good start and keeping the Mercedes behind, we were in third position, so I gave it everything.”
“Looking at the positives, the car was performing very well today and in terms of pace we were competitive. In general keeping a Mercedes behind you on this track is a very positive sign and hopefully, we can keep this momentum going to Singapore where our car is usually strong.”
The car was working really well and even though we lacked top speed our race pace was good, I’m happy with that! It is a shame that despite finishing 3rd we ended up being 5th, but we still scored some good points #KeepPushing #ItalianGP ?? pic.twitter.com/5heTrttEvu
— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) September 2, 2018
Max Verstappen was given a 5-second time penalty for this manoeuvre – and missed out on a podium
“I don’t agree with it.” Read more reaction from the Dutchman >> https://t.co/CiRgvKw23M pic.twitter.com/bb6hwhAxPs
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 2, 2018
Daniel Ricciardo
“It’s been another frustrating race for me. I passed [Lance] Stroll and looked in the mirror to see if I was clear of him but I couldn’t see that well. I then realised that was because there was a lot of smoke coming out the back of the car. And when I reported it to my engineers they asked me to stop. I feared it could have been something to do with the power unit but after we got the car back to the garage and the guys investigated, they suspect it’s a clutch issue. It’s been a frustrating period of races but hopefully, we can change some things on the car, improve the reliability and aim for the podium in Singapore.”
