Verstappen admits P2 finish ‘the best possible’ in Singapore after battling various issues

Max Verstappen shared mixed feelings after a hard-fought run to second position in Sunday night’s Singapore Grand Prix, having “struggled a lot” behind the wheel of his Red Bull throughout the race.

Red Bull headed to the high-downforce Marina Bay Street Circuit aiming to validate the apparent progress they have made with their RB21, following back-to-back wins for Verstappen in low-downforce conditions at Monza and Baku.

While Verstappen’s run to second in Qualifying and the Grand Prix continued that positive trend, the reigning four-time World Champion was made to work harder than he wanted to inside the cockpit.

Verstappen was heard complaining about shift problems in particular, at one stage describing his car as “undriveable” after locking up and narrowly avoiding the barriers at Turn 14, but he survived to come home between George Russell’s Mercedes and Lando Norris’ McLaren.

“It was a bit more difficult than I would have hoped for, to be honest,” Verstappen reflected afterwards. “For whatever reason in the race I was struggling a lot with the downshifts and upshifts of the car. It was giving me a lot of pushing under braking, which on a street circuit you don’t want!

“The car was also not where I wanted it to be, unfortunately. A few things of course to learn from that, I think, from some decisions that we made throughout the weekend in terms of the set-up.

“We didn’t do a proper long run [during practice], so that doesn’t help. But it’s not like it’s a mystery why it didn’t go so well in the race, so we just need to analyse that.”

Nonetheless, Verstappen added: “Even if the balance would have been perfect, I think second was still the best possible, because you can’t pass around here. As you could see, I think for more than an hour I had Lando behind me, and I think he was clearly faster, but you can’t pass.

“Of course, we went for a different strategy at the start with the soft [tyre], knowing that the left-hand side grid was very dirty, which we measured over the weekend. We had to take a risk. For me, that first stint was all about just managing to go long enough.”

As for how much encouragement can be taken from the weekend, given that he finished ahead of both McLaren drivers once again despite the higher downforce track characteristics, Verstappen maintained a cautious tone.

“We were more competitive, but I think it’s still not our favourite layout, let’s say it like that,” the Dutchman commented. “[But] maybe some other tracks will come to us a bit more, so we just have to see it race by race.”

Verstappen’s latest result has seen him make further progress in the Drivers’ Championship, moving to within 41 points of Norris and 63 points of championship leader Oscar Piastri.