General
Brawn: "No one could have gotten more out of the Red Bull than Verstappen"
- GPblog.com
Max Verstappen can't complain about his race in Austria with his podium finish since it was the best he could do. The Mercedes simply turned out to be too fast on the Red Bull Ring and in that context Verstappen again outperformed his car. According to Ross Brawn the result that Red Bull achieved is mainly due to the Dutch driver.
Biggest threat to Mercedes
In his column Brawn writes on the Formula 1 website: "Red Bull have certainly made improvements during the winter and it’s clear they currently offer the greatest threat to Mercedes, but they haven’t yet got the speed to challenge the Silver Arrows on pure performance."
Verstappen did his utmost despite the lack of power compared to the Mercedes and he finished with a fairly large lead over his teammate Alexander Albon. This is mainly due to his skills. "That didn’t stop Max trying, though."
"He delivered another exemplary performance with the package that he had – and I don’t think anyone could have got more out of it than him." Verstappen also fiercely fought Valtteri Bottas who he eventually managed to pass. Still it was a somewhat lost battle, but the Dutchman showed his will to win.
"His determination to fight back against Valtteri, after the Mercedes passed him, got us on the our edge of our seats but we knew this would be lost battle." According to Brawn, this shows once again the high level at which the drivers race with each other. Also because they keep going wheel to wheel at such high speeds.
"Max drove a mighty race and third was the most that he could achieve", says Brawn.