Verstappen jokes at press conference: 'After Bahrain I knew for sure'
General
- GPblog.com
Max Verstappen may receive his second world title at the FIA gala tonight. In the press conference ahead of that moment, the Dutchman reveals that he has been confident of title prolongation from the first moment. Verstappen also reveals that he is very happy with the Dutch Grand Prix's contract extension.
Confidence in the RB18
Verstappen is asked from when he felt he had the title in. "After Bahrain," jokes the 25-year-old driver. Along with teammate Sergio Perez, he crashed out in the first Grand Prix of the year. Verstappen continued in a more serious tone: " I mean when we put the car on the track in Winter testing it was a very competitive car but it was a little bit overweight, but I would say the way we bounced back after, of course a tough weekend in Australia, to go to Imola and the weekend we had was incredible.
The feeling in the RB18 was immediately right for Verstappen: "I knew that there was a lot of potential but I also knew of course at that point we had a lot of ground to catch up on but yeah the car since then was continuously developed in the right way and slowly the car was getting skinnier as well so that was good and yeah we’ve had a lot of incredible weekends as a team since then. It’s difficult to say which exact moment but after Imola I was confident we have a good opportunity.”
Surely, for the Red Bull Racing driver, the world championship he won in Japan this year is a lot different from winning his first World Championship title. “The emotions are very different, but I think they should be very different because your whole life you aim for one particular goal and that’s to become World Champion for me in F1, so yeah the first one is very emotional once you achieve it but this year has been very different, I do think we were more competitive this year and also more enjoyable with the way we were performing as a whole team, we won the drivers and constructors, we had a lot of victories as a team, so I would say this one is better and more rewarding but the first one will be more emotional.”
F1 continues to come to Zandvoort
In any case, Formula 1 will continue to return to Circuit Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix until 2025. “Yeah that’s very good news, I love driving there as well, I love seeing the fans there, so of course happy they extended it," concluded Verstappen.