Oracle Red Bull Racing finishes 1-2 in Bahrain GP

This is exactly the start we wanted, a one-two finish. I’m incredibly proud that we have achieved this as a Team. I could see early on that we had the pace in the car, I was able to build a gap from the start and then just managed it for the rest of the race, it was a straightforward day for us. It also feels good to finally win in Bahrain, I haven’t had the best history here.  Looking ahead to Jeddah, it's a completely different track with different conditions, there’s a lot of long straights and fast corners, so it will give us a completely different picture of where everyone is on the grid but at least this was a very good start for us.

My start wasn’t ideal, Charles was a little too aggressive, pushed me to the right and I did my best to avoid him. That meant my first stint wasn’t ideal, Charles was very strong on that new tyre and it was difficult to get through him quickly enough. I think that’s where I lost out to Max, I was behind him by about 10 or 12 seconds and after that it was game over on catching Max, it was all about getting Charles. It was important to get by him, minimise the damage and get that P2 for the Team. There are a lot of improvements we can still make to try and make our car better, there is still plenty of work going on behind the scenes. On this tarmac we have been very strong but Bahrain is a very unique circuit and things will be closer at other circuits.

The race pace was better than we expected, but at the same time, it’s very frustrating to just miss out on points. The start was the decisive moment as I lost some positions to Williams, and their straight-line speed was too strong for us, so we couldn’t manage to overtake them. I'm happy with my tyre management, although we struggled more than we thought. As soon as we wanted to push, the tyres began to overheat, and I started to slide around and lose the rear. We have more work to do to develop the car so we can consistently fight the midfield, starting with Saudi Arabia. Since we struggled with high-speed performance, Saudi might be difficult, but I’m staying positive as I’m sure the team and I will be able to extract speed from the car to be able to score points.

I'm pretty satisfied with our race today. Obviously, it could have been better and there is room for improvement, but in terms of performance, our race pace was decent. Given where we started, it was a good day because we could still fight some cars around us. Not pitting under the VSC meant I was driving on the hard compound tyre for the remainder of the race, but ultimately, the mileage and experience will help us for the season. Points weren't possible today, so we'll look ahead to Saudi Arabia, which is a bit quicker, meaning the midfield will look different again. We know there's more work to do, but as a team, we'll continue to work hard on the areas that require improvements to give us a stronger performance moving forward.