Max Verstappen drove comfortably to victory in the French Grand Prix. After the retirement of Charles Leclerc, the Dutchman had no problems and was able to take home 25 points.
Max Verstappen drove comfortably to victory in the French Grand Prix. After the retirement of Charles Leclerc, the Dutchman had no problems and was able to take home 25 points.
Verstappen can be satisfied after the race in Paul Ricard. His title rival took home zero points for his own error and the Dutchman was once again ahead of teammate Sergio Perez. The Mexican slept in the final stages of the race during the VSC restart and was overtaken by George Russell for P3.
After the race, Verstappen reacted to the victory in conversation with David Coulthard: "I think we had a very good pace from the start. I was pushing Charles, but following closely here in this heat (was difficult), the tires are overheating a lot."
"I could never get a try, only once in turn 11. I just tried to stay calm, tried to stay close," he said.
"We stopped a little bit early. From there you never know how the race is going to go. The car was fast today, and of course, unlucky for Charles, I hope he's okay. From then on I just did my race. I took care after the tires because the pitlane was so long," continued the Dutchman.
"I always try to get as many points as possible. Sometimes you just have to give up and wait for the end of the race. That's what we did. There are still many races ahead where we need to score points. In this respect, I think today was a great day," commented the Red Bull driver.
The next race is the Hungarian Grand Prix, the last before the August break. Verstappen emphasized that Red Bull needs to improve its qualifying pace. "We still have some work ahead of us, especially on flying lap, so we keep working," he concluded.