Max Verstappen managed to win again in 2024 with his seventh win of the season coming at the Spanish Grand Prix – but it wasn’t “straightforward” according to the three-time world champion, and he believes the race start was a “critical” moment in defining the outcome of the race.
The Dutchman qualified just two hundredths of a second back from Lando Norris’ McLaren on Saturday, but managed to swoop ahead of the Briton at the first possible opportunity at the start, as the McLaren fell back to third despite putting on a light squeeze on the Red Bull towards the grass.
But getting ahead of the both of them was George Russell’s Mercedes, as he had a flying start that jumped him up the order from fourth to first by the second turn. Verstappen wasted no time to get back ahead of the Mercedes and take control of the race on the third lap.
“Well, it wasn’t straightforward,” said Verstappen. “I mean, at the start, I think it was quite critical to get ahead of Lando [Norris], looking at it now.
“Of course, at the time, you just try to do what you think is best and how it works out. And then I think also what was very important was getting ahead of George [Russell]. You know, so that first thing that I could eke out a bit of a gap. And I think that all worked well.”
Reflecting on the close combat with Norris on the opening metres of the grand prix and the momentary trip through the grass, the now 61-times a grand prix winner downplayed any talks of unfair racing from his rival, and instead described it as “hard racing” and said he would “have done the same”:
“I think the first launch was quite okay. And then I got a little bit alongside and I had to go a little bit on the grass.
“But then I think George had a double slipstream. And he had a good run around the outside, which he managed really well.
“I think the three of us managed everything really well into turn one.
“It’s hard racing for sure. If you turn it around, would I have done the same [to Norris]? I probably would have done the same.
“You always try to squeeze it to the limit, and I also really wanted to avoid potential contact,” he explained. “Because you don’t want to rub wheels and potentially damage your suspension. So you naturally leave probably a few centimetres extra.
“And that meant those few extra centimetres meant that I had to go a little bit on the grass.
“And also, luckily with doing that, nothing happened. So it’s all good. I mean, we still had a good run to Turn 1.”
When looking at his race as a whole, the reigning world champion praised Red Bull’s near perfect execution of a race which he doesn’t believe the car had “optimum pace” to win, but urged for more performance upgrades to the RB20 in the coming races in order to be able to keep winning:
“I think we were quite aggressive on the strategy as a team with our pit stops. So I think as a whole package performance, we had a good race.
“You know, we really tried to maximize everything. But I do think that we were struggling a bit for the optimum pace. Lacking a bit of tyre deg towards the end of every stint.
“So it wasn’t a very straightforward, easy race. I mean, Lando was catching quite hard at the end. But luckily, it worked out that it was just enough.”
When asked to expand on Red Bull’s difficulties on Sunday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Verstappen explained the RB20 was coming short in terms of tyre life, but ultimately needs some more “outright pace” in order to maintain the stranglehold they had on the F1 field as recently as the beginning of the season:
“From my side, I can only, of course, speak about myself,” he said about the relative performance of McLaren and Red Bull. “And I think we are, of course, struggling a little bit for that outright pace, it felt like.
“Plus, I feel like we didn’t have the best tyre life today compared to Lando. It just seemed like he could push a bit more in some corners. And of course, we were a bit offset at one point with the tyres as well.
“Because he went a bit longer in the first stint. But yeah, we still optimized everything. I mean, I can’t really say that we did something wrong in the race.
“But we just need to try and find more performance.”
