Max Verstappen insists he is more happy to have finished in second place in the British Grand Prix than he is disappointed not to have won it.
The championship leader finished under two seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton after hunting down the Mercedes over the closing laps of the race.However, Verstappen had appeared less than comfortable over his opening stint of the race. He had run in third place behind the two Mercedes drivers before being passed by the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri and was even facing potential pressure from Carlos Sainz Jnr in the Ferrari.
“The beginning was not very good,” Verstappen conceded in the post-race press conference. “I tried to keep up, but I just ran out of tyres.
“Everything was running hot and I just struggled for grip. So then Lando got by, then Oscar got by, it started to rain. I had no grip as well there. I didn’t want to take too much risk as well because it didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel comfortable, so I was like, ‘I’ll just sit here and try to survive’. And that’s what I did.
“At one point, even Carlos rocked up at the party. So I was like, ‘geez, this is a really bad afternoon’.”
However, after switching to hard tyres as the track dried out following a mid-race shower, Verstappen managed to catch and pass Norris for second and was gaining on leader Hamilton all the way to the chequered flag.
“We just kept it on track, made the right calls from the slick to the intermediates and then from the inters back to the slick tyre, which just basically kept me in contention, really,” he said.
“By making the right calls today, we were there at the right time. And to the end, with the hard tyre, that was the right call for us, definitely. We could push on the tyre.
“The medium already wasn’t good enough for us. So to the end to go flat-out on the hard was the best we could do and we finished second.
“At one point it was looking like P5 or P6 even. So on a poor afternoon, I would say, in terms of performance, to be second, I’ll take that.”
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2024 British Grand Prix
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BLS (@brightlampshade)
7th July 2024, 20:43
Max put in a very good showing to get that P2, kept it between the white lines and almost reeled in Hamilton at the end despite only having a car that looked good for anything in the last 15 laps.
Mayrton
8th July 2024, 9:22
Understandably and rightfully so, most attention goes to Lewis after two and a half years without victory and a very good drive. Congratulations to him! But Max again displayed some intimidating power. Easily the 3rd/4th strongest car on the grid and yet he almost won again while his team mate is only going more backwards race by race.
Patrick (@paeschli)
7th July 2024, 20:52
Red Bull always manages to nail Verstappen’s strategy.
I don’t know whether Perez pushed for the early stop to inters or whether Red Bull wanted to sacrifice him to ensure Verstappen got the best strategy, but it is disappointing that we didn’t get to see him have a proper chance at moving up the field as well.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
7th July 2024, 22:14
@paeschli I don’t see why they would need to use Perez as a sacrificial lamb. Leclerc had already done them a favour by pitting out of a decent points-scoring position, so they could clearly see from his data that the track wasn’t ready for inters.
I can only assume Perez was struggling to keep the hard tyres up to temperature when the rain started falling. That or they just didn’t trust him to keep it out of the wall. Either way, pitting him then probably ended any points scoring opportunities for him, and leaving him out for lap after lap losing upwards of 5 seconds a lap was insult to injury. By the time the track was actually wet enough for inters, the early stoppers had already cooked them and needed a fresh set.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
8th July 2024, 1:27
Actually imo red bull had nothing to lose with perez, he wasn’t in a position to score points either way, if anything the silly call was (surprise) ferrari’s, cause leclerc was right behind sainz and with good scoring opportunity.
José Lopes da Silva
7th July 2024, 21:27
When you can’t win but you hold on to second place, extending your championship lead over everyone except the 8th placed in the championship. Another stepping stone to the fourth.
Pjotr (@pietkoster)
7th July 2024, 23:46
Nobody will deny that it was a masterclass drive and well deserved win for Lewis. As a Verstappen fan I wish the race would have lasted a two or three more laps, but it is what it is. Guess Mercedes is back, McLaren is hot, Red Bull has issues, Ferrari took a wrong turn somewere. Could be a nice rest of the season coming.
Jason Rawsterne
8th July 2024, 0:26
This is exactly it. its always a bore when the season is over and done with before its 60% through. No real fan wants to see that, kills the experience for all, even for those supporting the winning driver/team.
if you don’t agree then you are like the stereotypical Man Utd fan that is always jeered at in football games (not that these exist without prawn sandwiches on tap).
MadMax (@madmax)
8th July 2024, 7:34
Well the RBR was the faster car compared to Merc on race day. Qualy was impacted by the drivers mistakes at copse. And the race was impacted by bad tire management in the first stint, resulting into especially bad performance in the wet, before changing to inters.
Yes, the McL may have been able to beat RBR on pure performance. But Merc was clearly beatable, without mistakes – both for McL and RBR.
Patrick (@paeschli)
8th July 2024, 8:23
How can you blame Verstappen loss of pace in the first stint on bad tire management? He lost ground from lap 1, with zero degradation on the tires.
Verstappen finished 2nd with the third best car on the grid. A lot of that can be attributed to him nailing the switch to and from inters, and Norris losing 2s on his second pit stop due to completely missing his marks.
baasbas
8th July 2024, 9:14
Laughed hard at that one..
Ferrari catching strays
Edvaldo
8th July 2024, 15:47
If anything this race showed how good that car is. They were slow for most of the race and then out of a sudden the car turns into a whole different thing and almost wins the race again.
They’re competitive and competent to the point you can only count Max out when he’s out of a race.