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Max Verstappen would be gutted at losing out on what looked like a certain victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix. In hindsight, of course, there are things that Max Verstappen thought could have been done differently to give Red Bull a better chance at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Speaking about the race, Verstappen pointed out that Red Bull might need to look at how they could have probably used the tires differently.
"I think, strategy-wise, we'll have to analyze what we could have done better, maybe," said Max Verstappen. "But also, we didn't have the tires as they had."
"We didn't really have a lot of flexibility in the strategy. So maybe also there we could have done better in choosing our tires throughout the practice."
Christian Horner, Team Principal of Red Bull Racing, however, felt that there was an added element of Mercedes being a much quicker car in the race. According to Horner, that played a role in Mercedes taking the win at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
"Mercedes had very strong pace at the beginning of the race and we couldn't break [away], and create a gap to cover them," Horner said. "Their degradation looked impressive.
"So Max Verstappen could never get more than two seconds clear of Lewis. They obviously pitted early for the undercut, we then conceded track position. And going into the race we very much fixed our strategy on a two-stop.
"They obviously went early again on their last stop. We stayed out 10 laps longer, so we had a better tire for the final stint, but, unfortunately, Lewis had just enough to be able to hold on.
"It's obviously tough to lose a close race like that, but we have to take a lot of positives out of the weekend."
This is still a step forward from last year: Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen also spoke about how much Red Bull have improved compared to 2020. Verstappen claimed the team would have been celebrating if Red Bull had a weekend similar to the one in Bahrain.
"Last year we would have been super happy with this result and now we are disappointed," Max Verstappen said. "So we definitely made a good step forward and of course it is still a very long season. So… yeah… we just have to get on with it and try to do better."
Red Bull and Max Verstappen would be disappointed after the result in Bahrain but this was just the first round. They will get the opportunity to redeem themselves and will be looking to get it right the next time.
