Max Verstappen’s victory and Charles’ retirement in France led to the gap between the two leaders of the individual classification widening to 63 points. The Red Bull Racing driver believes that such a gap does not reflect the joining of forces, and in fact Ferrari’s competition is much greater than it can be judged by the situation in the championship.
Q: From the side, it looks like you got a pretty easy win. What is your opinion on this matter?
Max Verstappen: After Charles flew off the track, I knew the whole race was now reduced to monitoring the condition of the tires. Due to the long pit lane, the two-stop strategy was slower. Too bad, because otherwise we would have had more opportunities to fight.
I gradually made the gap bigger due to the fact that the car had a fast pace. Like I said, it all came down to monitoring the condition of the tires.
Question: Tell us about the first circles and the struggle with Charles. Whose car was faster at that stage of the race?
Max Verstappen: We’ll never know because we can’t trade cars, but it worked out well for us. I’m quite happy because I wanted to see if I could follow Charles closely or not, as was the case in Austria when I was in the lead, but I couldn’t stop him.
In France we were much more competitive. Of course our high speed on the straights helped us, but in fast corners we still had to be careful. I stayed in the DRS zone behind Charles for quite some time, but this inevitably led to overheating of the tires.
That’s why I had to let it move forward a bit, but nothing drastic. I still had hopes that we could compete with him even after switching to a different lineup.
Q: Were you surprised by Charles’ pace in the early laps?
Max Verstappen: I thought he would go faster and prepared for the fact that it would be difficult to keep up with him. Almost immediately, however, I saw that the balance was not so bad. Again, we had to fall a little behind, but we were very competitive. That was of course nice to see.
Q: In the individual standings, your lead over Charles has grown from 38 to 63 points. Do you find your advantage comfortable?
Max Verstappen: It’s great to lead with such an advantage, but a lot more can happen, so I want to stay focused. We need more good results and the car still lacks speed on a fast lap.
I think in the next race in Budapest we will have more problems because I think Ferrari will be very, very fast. We’ll see, but it’s important to score points in every race, even if it’s not your day.
Q: Do you think Ferrari could handle the tire wear at the start of the season?
Max Verstappen: Since then they have learned a lot and car upgrades also help with tire wear. In the race they were leading the way and were very fast, despite a little slip in the corners. It shows how fast their car is and what we need to improve – especially on a fast lap. We are working on it.
As I said, it is very important to earn points even on bad days, as we did in Austria. It’s great to be in the lead with such a lead, but the gap is a little more than it should be because our cars are very close in terms of speed.
Source: F1 News
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