Verstappen says Singapore GP a “wake-up call” for Red Bull

Max Verstappen admits Red Bull’s performance in the Singapore Grand Prix was “not good enough” and has acted as a “wake-up call” for his Formula 1 team.

Red Bull had targeted Singapore as one of its best chances for securing a third victory of the season given the strengths of its RB15 package, and the team was tipped as pre-race favourites along with Mercedes prior to the event.

But Ferrari shocked its rivals with stunning pace in qualifying, with Verstappen left to settle with fourth on the grid after ending up half a second adrift of Charles Leclerc’s pole position effort.

Things improved in the race as Verstappen undercut Hamilton and resisted late pressure from the Mercedes driver to complete the podium, but he was not satisfied with the weekend overall.

“It was not good enough,” Verstappen conceded. “We came here to win and we clearly didn’t.

"Yesterday I think was worse than today. I would say it’s a little wake-up call. From Austria onwards I would say it’s our worst race in terms of performance where we expected to be really good.

“I think it was a bit better in the race I could follow a bit. I was not in a position to attack but at least I could follow the cars ahead of me.

“They never really pulled away but of course initially it was all about tyre management anyway, so we were driving really slowly.

"I think we pitted at the right time, I undercut Lewis and that was very positive but from there onwards it was just about staying in the race.

“But I think we managed everything quite well. For us, after the difficulties we had in qualifying, it is still good to be on the podium.”

Verstappen said he has “a few ideas” as to why he thinks Red Bull struggled more than expected in Singapore and hopes the team can find some answers ahead of next weekend’s Russian Grand Prix.

“I have a few ideas why it went wrong so we will analyse all of them and see if we can already be better at Sochi,” he explained.

“The layout is not amazing for us but you can clearly see if the car is working through corners or not.

“I think here clearly in two corners the car was not working like I wanted it to, so we will go away and see what we can do better.”