In 2015, Max Verstappen put in a thrilling performance at the Shanghai International Circuit, making a number of his now infamous bold overtakes as he carved his way through the midfield.
This weekend however was a relatively quiet one for the Dutchman, who steadily made his way through the pack to finish eighth in the Toro Rosso. Nonetheless, the 18-year-old enjoyed the race.
“A race full of action!” said Verstappen. “At the start, I had a good first reaction but then I wasn’t able to keep my position unfortunately. From then on it was very tricky, and the Safety Car didn’t help as I lost even more ground with our double pit-stop, which meant I was at the back of the pack…
“But I stayed calm, overtook the rivals one by one and in the end, to cross the line in eighth position is something that if someone had told me at the beginning of the race I wouldn’t have believed! I also think the team did a great job strategy wise, we were able to charge through the field and score some more points.”
Team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr also had fun out there on Sunday, battling with the big boys as he looked to make headway in the 2016 Chinese Grand Prix, after losing time during the safety car pit stops, when Nico Hulkenberg chose to hold everyone up as he waited to be serviced by his Force India team.
“What an eventful and exciting race!” said Sainz. “There was plenty of action and I enjoyed it out there today – we had fights with Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, which are the battles we want to be having.
“A P9 in the end aren’t that many points, but it’s good to finish with both cars in the top 10 and keep adding to our tally. Maybe we could’ve finished a bit higher up, but we lost a lot of time behind Force India in the pit-lane during the first pit-stop…
“Overall, it was good fun out there today, we were able to do a lot of overtakes and our pace was decent. I’m now looking forward to our next race in Russia in two weeks’ time!”
