A position better than his own predictions. Max Verstappen ends the Russian Grand Prix in 4^th place: yesterday after the qualifying that saw him throwing his car behind the Mercedes and Ferrari, he was predicting that without any extraordinary events P5 was the maximum possible for his Red Bull. Well, ‘something’ happened during 53 laps of the new circuit near the Black Sea.

“I think P4 was the best possible result today and we had a little bit of luck with Seb retiring, but I’m satisfied with the points we scored considering the penalties and pace of Ferrari and Mercedes. There wasn’t too much going on for me once I cleared the mid-field traffic and from there I had a bit of a lonely race until the Safety Car closed us all up.

Fourth was the best possible result we could achieve today. Let’s #KeepPushing to improve #RussianGP 🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/WBDhDXbxFD

— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) September 29, 2019

The condition of the car (and of its PU) didn’t gave the best opportunities to ‘Mad Max’ for continuing its climbing up to the field:

“We were clearly a bit slower than the top three today but at the end of the race it was also more difficult being on the medium compound tyre when the others were on the soft.

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto explained the grounds on which the plan of giving Vettel a tow were key to maximise their winning opportunities, and also addressed the MGU-K failure Vettel was thwarted by.

But the Dutch does not want to give up, even at the end of the season; still hungry for another couple of podiums or wins: and Suzuka seems the perfect target in being Honda’s race.

“For sure we maximised the result but of course we want to be scoring more podiums and victories so we still have work to do as the others are very strong. Now I’m looking forward to Suzuka and we want to do the best we can for all the Japanese fans at Honda’s home race”