Verstappen amazes himself: 'How happy I would have been'
F1 News
- Ludo van Denderen
Nigel Mansell undeniably ranks among the best drivers who have ever driven a Formula 1 car. The now 70-year-old Briton became world champion in 1992 and took 31 wins in his career in the king class of motorsport. 31 wins is exactly the number of victories for Max Verstappen since the start of last season. After the Mexico Grand Prix, Verstappen was asked about Mansell and, at the same time, his own 31 wins in less than two years.
Verstappen responded to the Mansell query: "It's been another incredible season. The car has been unbelievable to drive in most places. When you then as a team work really well together and you try not to make too many mistakes over the whole season, then you can achieve something like this. So of course I'm very proud of the achievement. Because I think after last year when I won 15, I was like, well if I can ever try and replicate something like that, I would be very happy. And now we are here with 16. So yeah, just very happy with everyone's performance in the team for the whole year for basically not making a lot of mistakes."
Restart for Verstappen on red tyre
Verstappen had to work hard for it in Mexico. The three-time champion had a clever pit-stop strategy and led the race, which soon made him on his way to a relatively easy win. The red flag after Kevin Magnussen's crash meant that all nicely thought-out plans could be binned halfway through the race.
Verstappen then had to do the restart as well as the final stint on hard tyres, where, for example, Lewis Hamilton was able to finish the race on mediums. Worries about that did not worry Verstappen, he told afterwards. "For me, it was quite clear that we had to do the last stint on that hard tyre. Luckily you don't need to add on one lap, so that helped. But of course in the start normally the hard tyres are a bit more difficult to get off the line. But we actually had quite a decent start on that tyre as well."