Verstappen sees 'problem' at Red Bull: 'Hamilton drove away from Perez'

After an interesting sprint race in Brazil, Max Verstappen finished fourth. The Dutchman seemed to be on course for a win in the first laps, but the choice of mediums (where the competition started on softs) did not work out well. Verstappen knows the pace of the RB18 is simply not good enough.

George Russell was faster than Verstappen in his Mercedes. "I don't think we would have kept them behind us on the softs either. Somehow we went through our tyres very badly and had no grip at all," the Red Bull Racing driver is honest when he appears in front of Viaplay's camera after the sprint race.

Problem for Red Bull

Things were still reasonable for Verstappen in the early stages, but the pace completely collapsed in the closing stages. "At the beginning, the tyres are still relatively new and then it's not too bad, but the longer you go on, the more grip you lose. Somehow those mediums didn't get going at all either. If you looked at Checo, he was close to Hamilton, but Lewis just drove away from him. We really do have a problem. We need to start analysing that."

On the incident with Carlos Sainz, in which he damaged his front wing, Verstappen says: "I wouldn't have kept him anyway. In the end, damage or no damage, I would still have finished fourth." On his chances for tomorrow, he says: "If you look at today, it doesn't mean much good. I think we have to look more to the back than the front, but we will analyse everything and hopefully we can do a bit better.

P3 for Verstappen

Verstappen will start from third place at Interlagos on Sunday. He benefits from a grid penalty for Carlos Sainz. The Ferrari driver has been given a new engine and will therefore be moved back five places on the grid.