Oracle Red Bull Racing and Visa Cash App RB quotes from Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola.
May 19, 2024
Max Verstappen dug in for a brilliant Emilia Romagna Grand Prix victory on Sunday as he held off a late charge from McLaren’s Lando Norris with Mexican teammate Sergio Pérez eighth and Visa Cash App RB duo Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo finishing in 10th and 13th respectively.
Verstappen started on pole position and cruised through the first two thirds of the race before Norris started to make up time leading to a nervous last lap where the Dutchman managed to hold his nerve.
Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Pérez started on hard tyres and ran into the gravel at Rivazza, but recovered to bank eighth while Japanese driver Tsunoda completed an encouraging weekend with a point in 10th.
Verstappen now holds a 48-point lead over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc with Pérez 54 points back heading into the iconic Monaco Grand Prix next weekend.
QUOTES
Oracle Red Bull Racing
MAX VERSTAPPEN – 1st
“It was a close race today. I didn’t expect that the car would have that kind of pace at the beginning, which was nice and we were strong on the medium tyres. When we swapped to the hard tyres, it was a bit trickier to drive and more of a struggle to bring it to the end as tyres fell out of the operating window and we had really low grip. During the last 10 laps I was really trying to survive on the tyres and managed to keep Lando behind, but it required a lot of focus as we were on the limit with the penalty. However, we managed to work through and take the win; I was definitely counting down the laps until the end and it was a great feeling when we took the chequered flag! If you look at where we were at the beginning of the weekend, this was an extremely good result. There is a bit of work to do and things to analyse but we are looking forward to Monaco.”
SERGIO PEREZ – 8th
“We knew it was going to be a hard day today as the whole weekend was compromised from qualifying. Imola is a difficult track to overtake on so this was the maximum we could do today, especially we were struggling with traffic in the beginning on my first stint and on the hard tyres we had no margin to play around with the balance. We knew that McLaren were the fastest but Max had one of the best weekends I’ve seen from him in awhile, so a lot of praise for that and this was a great result for us. We have a few things we need to analyse and certainly some work to do as we head into the next race, but I’m looking forward to Monaco and hopefully we will continue our strong season and get some good momentum back.”
Visa Cash App RB
YUKI TSUNODA – 10th
“At the end of the day, I’m happy I scored a point in front of our home crowd and people who came from the factory. I think our start slightly compromised our race because we lost a couple of positions to Nico (Hulkenberg). He was fast on the straights, so we didn’t want to end up behind him which is why we pitted before him and earlier than planned. It was the crucial moment of the race, and I think we managed the strategy well and responded correctly to Nico. It meant we had to go long in our second stint and managing the hard tyre for the last 15 laps was challenging, but well done to the team for managing, that’s positive. The start is the main topic that we need to improve on. We’re working hard to take another step forward and we’ll focus on extracting the maximum out of our package. Monaco is up next and I’m looking forward to it. We’ve been working hard and performing well, and I don’t have a doubt that we will maximise our performance.”
DANIEL RICCIARDO – 13th
“I don’t think anything went wrong with the start procedure, I felt like I did everything right, but unfortunately, losing that starting place did cost us the points in the race. We’ll figure it out as a team, just because there’s a bit of a lack of consistency there and we immediately dropped out of the points. Then during the race we were in a train of cars, and being there with the dirty air, it’s a weakness at the moment for us. We’ll keep looking at it. I think with the clean air our pace was okay and I was doing decent times, but as soon as we got in some traffic we felt like we struggled more. That midfield we’re in it’s all about small details. We work hard for the qualifying position, so it’s important to be able to consolidate it at the start of the race. I think that if both Yuki and I stayed in front of Nico (Hulkenberg) at the start, we could’ve managed to stay there for the whole race, get on a little bit better with the pack and our race would have looked different. Let’s reset now, it’s been a couple of years now that I’m missing Monaco, so I’m looking ahead and I’m excited to go back there next week.”
JODY EGGINTON – Technical Director
“It’s nice to come away with a point from Yuki but there’s also a slight feeling of frustration as we had the pace to possibly be further up the road at the end of the race. However, we lost places with both cars off the start and that pushed us into making an earlier-than-planned stop to try and recover, meaning we had to go longer than we wanted on the second set of tyres. That opened up the opportunity for Stroll to go long with less traffic and he took good advantage of this. On the positive side, the car and recent updates worked well here and it’s been a fantastic effort from everyone at the factory supplying new parts, and it was good to see so many of them here with us, celebrating in the grandstands after all their hard work.”
LAURENT MEKIES – Team Principal
“With just 15 kilometres separating our Faenza factory from the Imola circuit, this was always going to be a special event for us; our first home race under the Visa Cash App RB banner. It was great to have so many employees from the factory here at the track, creating a sort of “Blue Army” in a special VCARB grandstand and rotating our VIP passes to get as many of them as possible into the paddock. This was our way of thanking everyone in Faenza, Bicester and at Honda for their hard work, which has been giving us good results, to put us once again at the top of the midfield here in Imola. Even if today’s race leaves us a little bit disappointed, as a better start from both Yuki and Daniel would have probably created a better scenario for us, a point is a point and there are many positives to take away from the weekend. Our qualifying performance proves that the upgrades we implemented in Miami are definitely bringing us performance to go on fighting for sixth position in the Championship. And now we carry that momentum forward to face the unique challenge of Monaco. Daniel has been on the podium there no fewer than four times, including a win, and Yuki is currently in great form, so we will be pushing for another strong performance from the whole team.”
