Max Verstappen says he had no chance of fighting Valtteri Bottas for victory at Formula 1’s Turkish Grand Prix and settled for second after the pit stop phase.
Verstappen retained second to Bottas for the majority of the race in wet conditions at Istanbul Park but held a gap of around three seconds for much of the first stint.
But Verstappen drifted away from Bottas after the pair made their respective stops and eventually finished almost 15 seconds behind the Mercedes driver.
“Considering our whole weekend being a bit off the pace compared to Mercedes I think we had quite a decent race,” said Verstappen.
“I mean in the beginning I just tried to follow Valtteri but of course we had to manage the tyres so I just dropped back a bit and at one point we started to pick-up the pace a little bit, also because the track was drying a bit.
“But there was no point where I would attack Valtteri and he was just managing his race of course also very well and looking after his tyres and of course I had Charles [Leclerc] quite close behind me in the first stint.
“After the stop, with like 20 laps to go, I think, just decided to bring it home. I anyway didn’t have the pace to fight Valtteri, so there was also no need to try to be within two, three tenths, to try and just follow him. Just save the tyres to the end, basically.”
Verstappen moved six points ahead of title rival Lewis Hamilton but conceded Red Bull has to understand its relative pace disadvantage throughout the Turkish GP weekend.
“They were definitely quicker this weekend,” said Verstappen of Mercedes.
“We just didn’t get it together and also in the wet they seemed to have a bit of the edge as well.
“So we’ll have to analyse of course why we weren’t that competitive here and I definitely do think they probably stepped it up a bit more so yeah, even with the points, it’s not going to be easy.”
