Max Verstappen says the now-defunct Virtual Safety Car that prevented him from attacking for second place in the Mexico City Grand Prix was not frustrating as he has benefited from stoppages in the past.
The defending champion closed a significant gap to Charles Leclerc in a second stint of the race that his race engineer described as ‘insane’, and was within DRS range from the penultimate lap. However, Carlos Sainz stopped in the stadium area and the VSC had to push his car behind a barrier, with the race only restarting on the final lap after Leclerc and Verstappen had passed the key overtaking spots.
“No, not really [frustrating]’, said Verstappen. ‘I mean, sometimes the Safety Car has been very kind to me in my career. So sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That’s how it goes in racing. It would have been fun, I think, until the end. Well, maybe a little more fun for me than for Charles defending, but it would have been a fun ending, I think, for everyone to watch.
Verstappen was the only driver in the top eight to start on medium tires and admits he was surprised no one else followed his strategy. He also did not predict that he would have the pace to fight for the top three, given Red Bull’s problems in Mexico.
“Personally, I didn’t expect to be on the podium,” he said. “I don’t think it really looked like that even in the first stint. I mean, at that point I thought we were just slow and struggling with the tyres. I do think that when we switched to the softs and the others to mediums, it all looked a bit more competitive.
“Still not at Lando’s level if you average the race, but the soft compound was definitely a better compound to race on, and it all felt a bit better. Overall it was very good to get P3 on a difficult weekend for us.”
Verstappen had a good start to attack for the top three places outside the line, but finished off the line at Turn 1, and later became involved in a battle with Lewis Hamilton, ending up behind the Haas of Ollie Bearman for the first stint.
“It was very hectic for me, the start of the race,” said Verstappen. “We had a really good start and then such a long run to Turn 1, and we were on the outside – three, four wide – so I hit the curb. It kept dropping all the way down, so I almost crashed into the grass.
“Even after that there was a lot going on. Everyone around me was on the soft tyres, I was on the medium tyres, and it seemed like that was a bit of a struggle. Surviving the first stint, trying to run on the tires for as long as possible… Once we were on the soft tyres, we were a bit more competitive, a bit happier. It’s been a tough weekend for us, but to fight for P2 with everything that happened in the first few laps happened, I think it’s still a difficult weekend. very strong result.”
Despite the result closing the gap on the championship leaders to 36 points with Norris taking over from Oscar Piastri, Verstappen says the performance shows how difficult it will be for him to win this year’s title.
“Lost 10 [points] to Lando, if you look at it that way,” he said. ‘I said before the weekend that everything has to go perfectly to win. This weekend didn’t go perfectly.
“It will be tough, but let’s see what we can do on other circuits. I obviously hope we don’t experience a weekend like that again, but it still shows that we are not fast in every scenario. We have to understand that a little better.”
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