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Verstappen: "It's nice to beat Ricciardo by this much"

16:15, 30 Sep 2018

byNicolás Quarles van Ufford

Red Bull driver and birthday boy Max Verstappen couldn't finish higher than P5 in Sochi, but the Dutchman was still happy with his performance compared to his teammate Daniel Ricciardo.

Ricciardo and Verstappen started from P18 and P19 respectively, but it was Verstappen who was flying. He quickly overtook Pierre Gasly and Ricciardo, before clearing Stoffel Vandoorne's McLaren as well in the first turn. He was in the points just a few laps later, and flew to P5 within ten laps. Incredible driving.

"We had a good start and we were able to cut through traffic nicely," Verstappen analyzed to Ziggo Sport.

"The car was great and that makes a lot of difference - you cut through traffic more easily."

The now 21-year-old drove in first place for the majority of the race, but eventually had to come in for new tyres, dropping him back down to P5. While some thought he would charge towards Kimi Raikkonen in P4 in the remaining 12 laps, he didn't, bringing his car home safe and sound in fifth.

"I just brought it home in the end, there was nothing more I could do - those tyres degrade so quickly, there was no point.

"The front left degraded really fast on the ultrasoft, so there was no space to push.

"Of course, it's nice to beat Ricciardo by such a margin, but we have to start from scratch in Japan.

"There's a long straight there with no DRS, so that will hurt.

"If we can get in front of them they won't be able to overtake, so it will be all about qualifying again."

It was another afternoon of Verstappen blatantly out-performing Ricciardo, as the Aussie was only in P13 when Verstappen was already in P6. Whether Dani Ric has simply checked out at Red Bull already or whether there's something else going on, only he knows, but the fact remains that Verstappen is clearly the better of the two this season.