Verstappen: Red Bull "a bit too slow" to fight Mercedes

The Dutchman had high hopes of being able to challenge pole position man Hamilton thanks to his front row start, but in the end never really was able to threaten the reigning world champion.

Having sat around five seconds adrift of the Mercedes for much of the afternoon, he eventually dropped further away after picking up damage to his front wing late in the race.

As Verstappen's pace fell away, he was eventually overhauled by Hamilton's Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.

Speaking after the race, Verstappen welcomed a podium finish after his retirements but says there was little to get excited about – beyond a temporary repass of Bottas late on.

"I tried but we are a bit too slow," he said about his battle with Hamilton.

"I did what I could also when Valtteri passed me. I tried to make it a bit difficult, because he was anyway going to get by one lap later.

"But at least it was a bit fun because the race was boring. [The] podium was good but still a lot of work to do."

Verstappen thinks that Red Bull needs to catch up with both car and engine, as he reckoned more work was needed if the team was going to close the gap to Mercedes.

"I was just pushing as hard as I could to stay with them, but clearly it is still not good enough," he said about the difference to Mercedes.

"The gap compared to the guys behind were massive. I was a bit shocked. I tried everything I could, but it's still not enough. We still have some work to do.

"But to bounce back from zero points last week to a podium now is a good start, but I think as a team we want to win and we want to fight for the championship. If you want to fight for the championship of course you need to win races."

He added "We need to look into it. I think we lose quite a bit on the straight as well, so it's a bit of both at the moment. We need to keep on working harder to try and close the gap."