Q: Helmut, the first win for Red Bull Racing since the Spanish Grand Prix in May – and the first one-two victory in a long time. How does it feel?

Helmut Marko: Liberating! Yes, we knew that we would be strong here – but then you always have to take into account what Mercedes are doing – and then see where you end up. And [on Sunday] we clearly had the upper hand!



Q: Lewis Hamilton’s engine failure played to your advantage…

HM: …my guess is that we very likely forced him into that engine failure! We permanently put pressure on him, challenging his lead, as he knew he had to create a gap – and to go permanently full throttle was probably not the best thing for his engine. But even without him retiring we had some things up our sleeves – I will not say what – just that with both cars on different strategies we would have challenged him anyway towards the end of the race.



Q: Speaking of strategy, how much did that play a role?

HM: It played a big part of our success, as the tyre degradation was immense. Max was very fast, but also hard on the tyres so he had more than the anticipated degradation – and that played a bit to his disadvantage.



Q: Max came very close to Daniel and everybody expected that he would challenge his team mate for the victory. Did you have to slow him down and tell him to stay where he was?

HM: We just told him: ‘If you continue with this speed your front tyres will give up in the next couple of laps and your sure P2 will be gone - and you will probably end up empty handed’.