Max Verstappen shared mixed feelings after a hard-fought run to second position in Sunday night\u2019s Singapore Grand Prix, having \u201cstruggled a lot\u201d behind the wheel of his Red Bull throughout the race.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
While Verstappen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Verstappen was heard complaining about shift problems in particular, at one stage describing his car as \u201cundriveable\u201d after locking up and narrowly avoiding the barriers at Turn 14, but he survived to come home between George Russell\u2019s Mercedes and Lando Norris\u2019 McLaren.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a bit more difficult than I would have hoped for, to be honest,\u201d Verstappen reflected afterwards. \u201cFor 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\u2019t want!<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t do a proper long run [during practice], so that doesn\u2019t help. But it\u2019s not like it\u2019s a mystery why it didn\u2019t go so well in the race, so we just need to analyse that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Verstappen added: \u201cEven if the balance would have been perfect, I think second was still the best possible, because you can\u2019t 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\u2019t pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were more competitive, but I think it\u2019s still not our favourite layout, let\u2019s say it like that,\u201d the Dutchman commented. \u201c[But] maybe some other tracks will come to us a bit more, so we just have to see it race by race.\u201d<\/p>\n