Verstappen took risks in Mexico: "That was really on the edge"

On Saturday, Red Bull Racing came from nowhere to really compete for pole. Mercedes had the first two places, but after the first corner, the roles were completely reversed on Sunday. Verstappen was in the lead and Sergio Perez was already in P3 after Bottas had been lapped.

A brilliant start by Verstappen

''You can’t really practice how a start is going to go, right, because you end up left, middle, right, depends on what happens, but once I was on the outside and basically on the racing line, I knew exactly where I was going to brake," Verstappen told the press conference after the race. The Dutchman did take a risk in doing so.

"It’s always a tricky one, especially the car, of course, on the inside, is fully into the dirt because nobody is really driving there, so they can never brake as late as the car on the outside, also because of the angle going into the corner, and I knew where I was braking that was really on the edge because you could see I was also getting closer to the white line on the exit, so I knew if somebody would brake later on the inside he would have definitely gone off the track, so yeah, I just went for it and it worked."

Struggling with Bottas

By the end of the race, Verstappen had built up such a big lead that he was able to get involved in other things as well. He tried to get in Bottas' way to set the fastest lap. Although Helmut Marko felt that Max should not have interfered with this, Max feels that he did not take a big risk.

"I mean I can understand they go for the fastest lap. So, the first time it didn’t work out but we played it safe, I think. We were side by side but it was all good. We lost a lot of time but it was alright, to be honest, for me. I know Valtteri, he’s a clean driver anyway and I was never in doubt that something would happen," the Dutchman concludes.