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max verstappen feels like a winner at spa, with always other winners

Verstappen feels like a winner at Spa: 'Better that than losing points'

29 July at 07:30
6
  • Ludo van Denderen

In a weekend where Max Verstappen was initially well behind his closest rival Lando Norris, the Red Bull Racing Dutchman still managed to increase his margin in the world championship. With - eventually - a fourth-place finish and Norris behind him in fifth place, Verstappen felt something like a winner after the Belgian Grand Prix.

"Of course, it was better to gain points than lose points," Verstappen told the media including GPblog. At the time, it was unknown that George Russell would lose his Grand Prix victory, so Verstappen finished fourth instead of fifth. "And today could have been either way [gaining or losing] because he [Norris] was very fast behind me. But at the same time, I was also hunting in front of me," said Verstappen, who in hindsight would have preferred to be able to do two stints on hard tyres.

"I think today a [second] hard tyre would have helped. Of course, George won the race on a one-stop, but I don't think we had the tyre wear or tyre life to do that anyway. Also, there are a few things to analyse, but as a team today, we did a good job, and we definitely did the right thing with the strategy to try and be a bit aggressive initially to try and get ahead of a few and made my race a little bit better. But then too many cars is where we got stuck with."

Verstappen happy with different winners

In the end, it was Mercedes that won the race, although it only became clear hours after the finishing flag that the victory belonged to Lewis Hamilton. The fact that it was always different drivers taking points off each other means that Verstappen has a comfortable lead in the championship at the start of the summer break. "It's fantastic, yes," Verstappen said of having a different winner each time. "I prefer to have it like that than one team suddenly dominating every single race."