Japan Focus for Oracle Red Bull Racing as Winning Run Ends in Singapore

After 15 race wins in a row Oracle Red Bull Racing have become mere mortals once again following hard-fought 5^th and 8^th place finishes at the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday. However, an almost immediate shift towards restoring that dominance in Japan this weekend was on the cards as the team spoke afterwards.

Current world championship leader Max Verstappen sees a win in Japan as the perfect tonic to a disappointing outcome in Singapore.

“For now, the target is to win next weekend in Japan,” stated the Dutch driver. “Everything needs to be perfect to win every race in a season, I knew this day would come and it’s absolutely fine. Everyone sees how dominant we can be and they don’t realise how difficult it really is, we need to get a lot of things right.”

Stronger

For teammate Sergio Perez, there’s an expectation the team will be stronger in Japan: “I think the issues were circuit related and we should be stronger next weekend, let’s move on and look forward to Japan,” he added.

Team Principal and CEO Christian Horner struck a conciliatory and philosophical tone in the aftermath of Sunday’s race.

“Firstly, congratulations to Ferrari. Carlos drove a great race and managed to hold on for the win. It certainly has been an exciting race today, but for us, we were very unlucky. The safety car could not have come at a worse time and that killed any chance for us to get into contention. It was a shame, but there are also a lot of positives.”

Momentum

Horner continued: “Max’s pace at the end and then with Checo coming back through also made for a very strong performance. We knew that the run would come to an end at some point and we reflect on the job well done by the Team. 15 wins in a row is an incredible feat. 10 wins for Max is something that is equally remarkable. We carry a lot of momentum heading into Japan and look forward to getting out and going again.”

Agreeing with his boss, Verstappen pointed to the safety car as a defining moment for the race.

“We had good pace and we were just unfortunate with the timing of the safety car, if it weren’t for that, I really think that we would have been in a good place to fight up front. With the strategy today it was really important to not make any mistakes. In the end I was able to have some fun catching up on the mediums.”