Max Verstappen takes his seventh win of the season, the fifth in a row at the Red Bull Ring. The Red Bull driver’s race ran smoothly, with a consistent gap of 24s over runner up Charles Leclerc in the final laps of the race, which allowed him to pit an additional time in order to score the additional point for the fastest lap.
The two times World Champion was very pleased with his and his team’s performance after dominating all the sessions of the weekend, including pole positions for both the actual race and the Sprint race:
“I think the most important for me of course was Lap 1, to stay in front. After that we could do our own race, of course we opted not to box during the virtual safety car and just follow our normal strategy, and I think that worked out really well because the tyre life was not that high around here,” he said after the end of the Austrian GP.
“Our stints were perfect. Great day, I enjoyed it a lot.”
A crucial moment of his Sunday afternoon was the strategical choice of not taking advantage of the virtual safety car brought out by Nico Hulkenberg and sticking with his original pit stop plan instead, which turned out to be the right call:
“I could see already that the few laps before the virtual safety car came out we were pulling out quite a gap, so I knew that I would get them back eventually. Just following our own plan was the best way for it.”
The championship leader, who has an 81 points advantage on his teammate Sergio Perez in the standings, appears to be on the right track to score his third consecutive Formula 1 title. However, asked whether he thinks already about the opportunity to win another championship, Verstappen denied it:
“I don’t like to think about that yet, I’m just enjoying the moment, riving with this car, working with this team. I think that the whole weekend we have done a really good job. You know, Sprint weekend is always very very hectic, and a lot of things can go wrong.”
“Luckily, a lot of things went right for us this weekend, so I’m just really happy with this weekend and we’ll focus again on Silverstone.”
Photo credits: Red Bull Racing
The Red Bull driver concluded with a mention to the great support received from Orange Army during the whole weekend:
“It’s an incredible support every time we come here, and to see all the orange on the grandstands and the flares as well at the end. Incredible atmosphere, thank you very much for coming.”
Asked if he always knew that he would have been able to fend off the Ferrari drivers attempts, Verstappen was adamant: “Yeah, I mean, our pace was good. It wouldn’t have mattered what kind of strategy they did, I think that we always had the upper hand in this race.”
He also returned on the radio to his team, asking to pit in order to try and score the fastest lap point held by his teammate Sergio Perez at that time. At first, the Red Bull crew hadn’t been stoked by the idea, as Verstappen was very safely cruising to the race win, but in the end the reigning champion was allowed to stop for fresh rubber.
“I think they could hear in my voice that I wanted to pit, so luckily they called me in,” he added with a laugh.
