Max Verstappen (once again) on display, but not satisfied
Victim of a breakdown in qualifying, Max Verstappen started 15th on the grid. With a remarkable race, he once again surpassed everyone by moving up fourteen places and managed to secure yet another podium, just behind his teammate Sergio Perez.
A masterful comeback
Max Verstappen once again proved his talent. Thanks to a very good pace and flawless driving, he was able to catch up with his competitors and pass them one by one, eventually reaching second position.
“At the beginning, the first few laps were really difficult to keep up with the cars, especially on an urban track: fast turns, walls close by, the effect of a tailwind, and the car going in all directions. After a few laps, everything started to improve and I was able to pass the cars one by one, and the pace was good,” declares the world champion.
“The safety car, triggered after Lance Stroll’s breakdown, also played in his favor, according to the Dutch driver’s admission.”
The safety car, of course, helped me get back into the race, but even with that, you are losing too much time with Checo [Perez], for example, during the restart. So, once I got to P2, there was a decent gap.
Concerned about reliability
Clouds on the horizon? Towards the end of the race, we could hear the Dutchman complaining on the radio about a potential transmission issue. While his team assures him that they don’t see any problem, Verstappen prefers to hold on to his second place and not push the car too much.
I tried to reduce the gap a bit, but at one point, I sensed these vibrations on the transmission system, at the back. The team couldn’t see anything, but I’m almost certain that there was something weird in the balance since the vibrations started to be felt.
At one point, I did the calculations; I wouldn’t have been able to reduce this gap until the end with only 10 laps to go, so at some point, I think it’s more important to settle for second place, not have any problems with the car, he explains.
If one could imagine that he would have been satisfied with that, it is not the case since he appeared quite annoyed at the press conference, worried about potential reliability issues.
My first weekend wasn’t very clean, due to the big imbalance between testing and race weekend, and other things happening in the background. Now, again, after three positive practice sessions, I had a problem in qualifying. Of course, I managed to climb back to second place, which is good, and in general, everyone in the team is happy, but personally, I’m not happy because I’m not here to be second.
