Verstappen enjoys battles: 'Now you really have to be in top form'

F1 News

Verstappen reaction after Austrian grand prix sprint race
29 June at 14:34
3
  • Cas van de Kleut

The weekend in Austria is so far going perfectly for Max Verstappen. The three-time world champion managed to win the sprint race at the Red Bull Ring from pole position. At the start, the Dutchman had to fight hard for it against Lando Norris. Verstappen therefore told after the sprint race that it is still very close.

Recent race weekends have made it clear that Red Bull must once again fight for wins. McLaren has made a huge stride. At times, the British team even looks faster than Red Bull. Still, Verstappen has managed to keep the damage fairly limited in recent weekends. So too during the sprint race.

Verstappen enthusiastic about exciting battles

When asked after the sprint race if he gets satisfaction from races with exciting battles, the Dutchman replied, "Well, I think I feel good with the car. I think I'm working well with the team to really extract everything out of the car. As you can see, it's very tight, and it's little details that can define a weekend nowadays between teams, which, of course, is very exciting."

Verstappen continued: "I mean, of course, naturally, I would like to win by 20 seconds, 30 seconds. Because naturally, you still do the best you can. You're still optimising your performance. But now that it's a lot closer, then it requires you to be really on top form. And even today, I got challenged. I got passed. I went for it, got my place back, and we won the race."

Will Verstappen win the race in Austria?

Whether it is then a guaranteed win for tomorrow? Verstappen said: "Absolutely not, because it's still going to be very close. So we do need to find little improvements for tomorrow to probably stay on top. And again, qualifying now in the afternoon will define a lot anyway what's going to happen in the first stint tomorrow. But, yeah, I'm happy."

"Of course, there are always things that I look at and will look back at that I want to work on or try and be better at. Of course, after a weekend, it's always easy to comment on these kinds of things, but I think naturally as a driver, that's how it should be. You should never be saying, ‘I'm happy and that's it. I'm going to go home and not think about anything and rock up the next race.’ That's not how it works," concluded Verstappen.

This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy