Max Verstappen says he understands why his team mate made a risky move to take the lead of his home race at the first corner.
Sergio Perez retired after colliding with Charles Leclerc at the first corner of the race. He had started from fifth place and was trying to sweep around the outside of Leclerc and Verstappen to take the lead.“I understand because it’s his home grand prix and you want to be on the podium,” said Verstappen. “I fully understand that he went around the outside and he tried.
“Looking at the footage I think he could have left a little bit more space. But at the other end, if it would have worked, you look amazing. I think it’s just more like that excitement of wanting to be on the podium and this time it didn’t work out, unfortunately.”
He said he saw little of the collision between Leclerc and Perez. “We all trust each other and of course you are all on the limit braking into the corner, but it was all fine I think. But then, of course, I saw my outside that something happened, luckily we could stay out of trouble.”
Verstappen, who started third, took the lead of the race at the start and went on to win. He said his start “definitely made it a bit easier for me in the first stint.”
“Because I was going to do a two-stop [strategy] so that of course gave me those extra couple seconds that would look great on the plot [graph of his race position] anyway, if we would have made it happen.”
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He started the race on the medium tyre compound but made an early switch to hards, planning to take another set later on.
“The tyres around here, it’s always very hard to manage but I think we had quite decent pace on them,” he said. “Of course we opted to box a bit earlier. I think also on the hard tyre we were quite competitive and I closed a lot of that pit stop [gap] back down.”
His strategy was disrupted when Kevin Magnussen crashed heavily, causing a Safety Car period followed by a red flag. Verstappen had already made his second pit stop before the race was suspended.
“It would have been quite interesting to the end to see how much faster I could have gone on a new set of hard tyres,” he said. “I think the strategy was looking great.
“But then of course we had the red flag, so basically everything that we did we could throw in the bin and start over. But then again it was all about having a good start and try to keep the lead into turn one which we did and after that, it was just pace management to the end to keep the tyres alive, looking after the car, the brakes, everything.”
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2023 Mexican Grand Prix
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- Ferrari reaping the benefits of having F1’s most closely-matched team mates
- Norris had “no chance” to beat Verstappen in Mexico even without Q1 exit
- Transcript: How Ricciardo’s race went awry soon after he was told to “bring it home”
- Mercedes see “very encouraging signs” from Austin floor update
BasCB (@bascb)
30th October 2023, 7:40
Well, I guess that’s also a legitimate take. Shame they did not tell Leclerc up front so that he would have played along and braked some 20 meters early to nicely fall back behind the Red Bull cars then?
Sure, I get it, the moment just before the corner must have felt great for Red Bull and Perez. And it really is good to hear Red Bull finally not talk down their own driver for a change (was Marko really sidelined? Haven’t seem him at the last 2 races, I don’t think) though.
Apart from that and from Tsunoda and at times Stroll we got some really decent on track action with drivers going for moves and defending without crashing.
MacLeod (@macleod)
30th October 2023, 8:08
Marko was there in Texas but didn’t saw him in Mexico (or i ignored him…)
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
30th October 2023, 8:57
> I fully understand that he went around the outside and he tried
There’s Verstappen’s masterpiece going around the outside at Mexico turn 1 and there’s that clumsy Checo’s going around the outside
Jeffrey Powell
30th October 2023, 10:05
Checo is a lovely guy he almost never upsets me because most of the time he seems to be in another world with that other car which looks very similar to mine. I look forward to his company in the years ahead and it would be nice for the whole team to support him as he approaches middle age. As an aside I think beards are very untidy and it would spoil our clean look in future team photos.
Ajaxn
31st October 2023, 16:14
Home race or no home race, there was absolutely no reason to gamble. This is the difference between a good driver and a great driver. The great drivers see the longer term, they think ahead, rationally not emotionally.
Perez only had to survive the opening lap, to then pick off any cars ahead of him, and maybe then go for a strategy call for the lead.
He had this and threw it away. A gamble for first lap glory is no excuse.