Max Verstappen said he was just driving to “survive” against Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri in the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix Sprint.
Verstappen lined up alongside Sprint polesitter and former title rival Hamilton for Saturday’s race at the Shanghai International Circuit.
The Red Bull driver tried to keep pace with the Ferrari driver but struggled with graining and eventually fell into the clutches of Piastri’s McLaren.
Still, the Dutchman was pleased to come away with a Sprint podium.
“I tried to give it a go because I also had Oscar behind me pushing, so I was trying to keep out of the DRS that helps a lot on the back straight,” Verstappen told interviewer and 1997 F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve in parc ferme.
“But unfortunately, the last eight laps, I would say, we just didn’t have the pace to the others, so I was just trying to survive out there.
“I will definitely take that P3. Even the cars behind were catching up quite a lot. It was tough out there to manage the tyres somehow. But it’s okay. We’ll try to do better.”
Speaking in the subsequent press conference, Verstappen added “I would say like midway you really started to feel that the deg was kicking in.”
This tallies with the moment that Verstappen lost his grip on Hamilton in the lead and started to fall away from the rear of the Ferrari.
“It just seemed a little bit more aggressive for us than maybe the cars around us,” Verstappen continued.
“But I think that just comes from maybe also not having the base pace.
“You try to hang in there and you naturally just destroy your tyres a bit more.
“To be in the top three I think is still a good result for us.
“We started a bit more ahead than I think we should have anyway.
“So I’m pretty pleased with, I would say, hanging in there.”
Piastri and Hamilton react to tyre struggles in China Sprint
Verstappen’s successful pursuer Piastri said the Sprint was “Probably one of the more difficult ones in terms of tyre degradation. So I knew I had to try and be patient.
“I pretty much executed the sprint that I wanted to. Probably one position short of what I wanted to do.
“But I think in terms of how I went about it, I was happy with the end result.”
Hamilton, the Sprint victory also acknowledged the difficulty of managing the tyres.
“The tyre degradation today was pretty huge, I think for everybody,” he said.
“So I think for me it was just trying to manage that early on. And then the last five laps or something, I was in a really pretty comfortable position.”
That comfort produced a seven-second margin to Piastri by the time the chequered flag fell.
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