In our report here>>> we are calling it one of the great drives of Formula 1 history, Max Verstappen’s performance on his way to claiming third place at the Brazilian Grand Prix is stuff of legend.
The Dutch teenager delivered a drive which no amount of superlatives can justify. He spoke after his mega afternoon at Interlagos.
An astonishing drive, where do we pick the bones out of that one? Maybe we could start with those passes at the start on Raikkonen and the restart on Nico. Talk us through those.
MV: Yeah, in the first run I was trying some different lines and I found a good one so I knew that if Kimi was not going to take that line then I had a good chance of overtaking him. That worked out, he couldn’t really see what was happening in front of him and I pulled out of the spray and then I could brake on the inside and pass him, so that was all clean. From there on, I was a bit relieved because they were a bit slower behind me so I could follow the guys in front. But then of course, with the red flag and stuff, coming in twice actually, the same like Lewis, the second one I didn’t really understand because I think I was ready to go. It was similar to before. Then from there on, once we restarted again, I think the track was worse than before. We had good pace again, I had a good fight with Nico in turn three so of course enjoyed overtaking him there and then trying to follow Lewis a bit and then I had a massive moment in the second last corner onto the straight, so lucky not to hit the guardrail. And then I continued and then at one point I got the call to box because I heard Daniel was already gaining a second on the intermediate tyre so we did a pit stop. The first set was actually pretty good but then it started to rain a bit harder than before so then the last sector was undriveable, it was very difficult before but then undriveable on the intermediates, so we had to pit again and I don’t where I was, fifteenth? I hadn’t a clue, fifteenth, sixteenth? Yeah, then I started to pass people again and then it was very difficult, very tricky. I couldn’t see where I was going on the straight, at such high speeds it’s not nice but we managed to pass a lot of them and then of course you come back on the podium and it’s a great result at the end of the day.
Obviously the feeling was that if you could get the race onto the intermediate condition across the three of you, maybe the Red Bull would be the quicker car. You tried it twice, two gambles as you just referred to, but if you hadn’t taken those gambles, looking back on it, do you think this was possibly a winnable race for you or were they just too strong today?
MV: Win? Maybe not but I think a second was definitely possible. I think we were in quite a safe position in second but sometimes you have to gamble a bit to try and win the race. That’s what we tried today, it didn’t work out but we’re still on the podium with some great overtakes so I’m quite a happy person.
Can you describe to us a little of the sensation you had overtaking so many drivers and chosing a very original line on the track?
MV: About the line, I think it’s just because you can’t see where you’re going when you just stay behind them, so you try something else and it seemed to work. The car was working really well also so that helps. Of course it’s great because you have to go forward. We didn’t have the best strategy at the time so you try to make up for it.
The race was twice interrupted, you had to hang around for half an hour each time. How distracting is that?
Yeah, pretty OK I think. I was ready to go again so I was just sitting there waiting to hear the message that we could race again.
The Brazilian fans don’t have a Brazilian driver winning and fighting for the title and they stayed from 7am until now in the rain, so I would like you to comment on that because you guys gave them a very good race despite the conditions…
MV: Yeah, it was very nice to see them staying, first of all, after two red flags, then you can clearly see the dedication they have to F1 and also when my engineer opened the radio when I was pulling passes on the cars they were cheering, so they were really living up to it and I think that’s great.
In the past we’ve had much worse conditions than these, much more rain – for example Fuji 2007 – but it seems more and more that driving with these cars is almost impossible, too dangerous in these conditions today. Can you explain why it gets more and more difficult to drive these cars in the rain and can you understand that some people can’t understand that a racing car is not driveable in the rain by the best drivers in the world – how is that possible?
MV: Well of course I haven’t driven in 2007 but yeah, I think it’s a combination of having more horsepower now, so more torque, so the cars are speeding up more and less downforce at the moment. Yeah, I think next year it should be solved already, it will be much easier to drive the cars in the wet because of having quite a lot more downforce on the race. Of course, I think we can do improvements on the tyres, we’re working on that for next year but I think that with more downforce that should help already.
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