Verstappen: It’s difficult to do everything perfectly, but we did it

To understand the level of performance of Max Verstappen in the past two seasons, it is enough to mention this fact: during this time he has already achieved 31 victories. Nigel Mansell won so many races during his career, and during an interview after the finish of the Mexico City Grand Prix, the three-time world champion was reminded of this…

Q: There was no doubt about your victory from the first corner of the first lap of the race – how did you observe what was happening on the track from the cockpit of the car?
Max Verstappen: Yes, I think the start certainly simplified my task in the first stint, also because I covered the distance with two pit stops. This obviously allowed us to increase the lead by a few seconds, and this could have come in handy anyway if we had implemented our tactics.

But on this track it is always difficult to find the right approach to the tyres, even though we managed to achieve a decent pace. We then opted to make an early pit stop. But even on hard tires we were quite competitive. Overall, I think it would have been interesting at the end of the race to see how much faster I could have gone if the car had had the newer Hard kit.

In my opinion we had excellent tactics, but obviously red flags prevented us from putting them into practice. In fact, it turned out that everything we had achieved by that time had to be forgotten and started from the very beginning. But again, the most important thing was to get a good start and try to take the lead into Turn 1, which we did quite well.

Then it was just a matter of controlling the pace to reach the finish of the race, while maintaining the efficiency of the tires, the brakes, the car as a whole – in short, everything together.

Q: You had great success in both starts: can you tell us more about the first? You made a good start, but were you nervous when three cars entered Turn 1 at the same time?
MaxVerstappen: No, I wasn’t nervous at all. I want to say that this wasn’t the first time I entered this corner with other cars, there were two or three. My point is that we all trust each other. Of course we are all driving on the limit, we brake very late in this corner, but in my opinion everything went fine in my case. Although of course I saw that something was happening on the outside of the bend. Luckily we were on the inside track and were able to avoid problems.

Q: You mentioned the period for which the race was stopped with red flags. Have you been concerned about the behavior of the hard tires when restarting?
Max Verstappen: I understood that I would have to drive the last part on hard tires. Luckily we had an almost new set that had only done one lap and that helped. Although of course it is usually a little more difficult to start normally on hard tires, but we managed.

Q: You broke another record: the victory in Mexico City was your 16th this season. And since the start of last season you’ve already won 31 races – Nigel Mansell has won that many in his entire career. What do you think about it?
MaxVerstappen: This season is going incredibly well. I want to say that our car performed well on most tracks. Look, if you work very effectively with your team and try not to make too many mistakes, you can achieve about the same level of success as the season progresses.

Of course I am very proud of this achievement, because after winning fifteen races last season I thought: “If I can do something like that again, I will be very happy.” And now we have already achieved sixteen wins, so of course I am very happy with the way our whole team has worked this year.

Question: Helmut Marko said that he bet with your race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, that you would take the lead at Turn 1. But during the race you even made two excellent starts. In Austin you thanked your engineer for a good start. Can you tell us in more detail what efforts have been made to make the launches more effective? And are there any special reasons that have gotten you off to a particularly good start lately?
MaxVerstappen: No, but we have simply achieved some improvements in all processes related to this – we already better understand what the grip of tires on asphalt depends on and how to adjust the grip. We had a small problem at the beginning of this year, but we solved it.

Although it seems to me that we still have some work to do, both in terms of warming up the tires and choosing the clutch settings. These are all very sensitive areas. If you guess incorrectly, it will end with excessive slippage of the drive wheels, or the clutch will not work clearly enough. It’s very difficult to do everything perfectly, but this time we did it.

Question: Do you think Sergio Perez’s actions at the beginning were too risky, or should he have tried anyway?
MaxVerstappen: I understand Sergio, because this is his home Grand Prix. He wanted to get on the podium and I completely understand his actions as he tried to break to the front along the outside stretch. Although, of course, when I watched the recording of this episode, I thought it could have left more space on the right side. But on the other hand, if everything had worked out, he would have been a hero. Rather, he was driven by the desire to get on stage, but unfortunately nothing came of it.

Q: You say Sergio took a big risk in Turn 1, but what could you see from your car?
MaxVerstappen: I didn’t notice much of it at the time. At one point I just saw his car flying into the air, but after the race I watched the video and then I can comment on something. But when you’re fighting on the track it’s hard to see anything, especially because I was mainly focused on Charles Leclerc’s actions and I couldn’t see what was happening in the outer radius of the corner.

Question: During the first half of the race we heard your comment on the radio about the car’s behavior in Turn 3: you said: “I tried, but the car doesn’t handle it well.” Can you explain what you were talking about? Were there any difficulties?
MaxVerstappen: No, there were no difficulties, but there was just such a curb. I tried to cut it like other drivers did, but sometimes the car bounced too much and I tried different lines. But it seems to me that Gianpiero sometimes tries to put himself in the driver’s shoes. He and I sometimes argue, and during discussions I sometimes act as the race engineer, and he as the racer. We generally switch roles.