Max Verstappen secured his second career podium finish and the best ever result for Red Bull Racing at their home event with a second place finish on Sunday at the Red Bull Ring.
The Dutchman drove a strong and composed race, holding off the challenge of Kimi Raikkonen for the final podium position over the closing stages despite being on tyres that had done more than 50 laps, before moving up into second on the final lap when Nico Rosberg slowed with damage caused when he collided with team-mate Lewis Hamilton at turn two.
Verstappen praised his car and the Pirelli tyres after the race, and admitted to have enjoyed his afternoon after early overtakes followed by a good defensive drive to hold off Raikkonen.
“It’s a great feeling to get the second Formula 1 podium of my career,” said Verstappen. “For sure that was a good race today, the car was performing well, as were the tyres.
“I managed to overtake some cars at the start and had some good battles so that was really good fun. From there on I did my own race, Kimi was catching fast but I managed to hold him off until the end. I expected P3 but got the P2, I was surprised but very happy to pick up another position in the last lap.
“The safety car definitely helped us today and allowed us to make the most of the pit stops. Towards the end we had to deal with the pressure but that just means you can’t make any mistakes, and we didn’t today. I hit some traffic which cooled the tyres and made it a bit tricky but we finished with no problems.
“We are working hard for this season and picking up podiums so it’s definitely positive looking at 2017, and looking at Silverstone next week it should be good, the car usually performs better there than here so that is another positive after a good day today.”
