F1 News
Windsor: 'Verstappen won precisely because of his problems with RB20'
- Cas van de Kleut
Max Verstappen surprised friend and foe by winning the Canadian Grand Prix. The international press was already impressed, but even analyst Peter Windsor, who thought Lando Norris would win, saw the Dutchman driving very carefully.
McLaren were ultimately Red Bull's biggest rival at the Canadian Grand Prix. Norris in particular, who was leading before the safety car, managed to put Verstappen under pressure. However, the Briton fell back in the final laps, allowing the Dutchman to win the race anyway.
'Verstappen was running ahead of Norris in less car'
Windsor says in his race analysis on his YouTube channel that he was surprised by the outcome of the race: "It was Lando Norris race to win, in my eyes, that's what I thought. I thought Lando was going to win it. I think a lot of people out there did, too. The McLaren was so good. And he didn't. Max just pulled away. And that is for sure, it was an excellent piece of driving by Max Verstappen. Because I don't think, on the day, that Red Bull was as good as the McLaren in terms of its drivability, certainly over kerbs."
The analyst continued: "But in terms of the downforce, the traction versus the top speed, difficult, really, to make that call, because Lando was in DRS and very, very good in DRS. Which is why I thought he was going to win the race. But amazingly, over those last ten laps, Max did what he's done so many times before, and what he does so well under pressure. Just one tenth here, one tenth there. Absolutely on the limit."
'Verstappen won because of the problems with RB20'
It is generally clear that Red Bull has a problem with the kerbstones. Windsor thinks this very problem may well have caused Verstappen to win the race: "Oscar Piastri, quite early on this ten lap run, right to the finish, [he] grained a rear tyre. And then Lando was starting to have trouble with graining a little bit and having to back away."
"Whereas Max, at this stage of the race, in a car that wasn't as good as an RB20 has been in other races, didn't have any. Didn't apparently have any tyre issues. And possibly that's because he wasn't using kerbing, because he was being unbelievably precise in the way he was driving the car. And that's how he won it. And he won it going away from Lando Norris," Windsor concluded.