Max Verstappen insists he’s extra completely happy to have completed in second place within the British Grand Prix than he’s disillusioned to not have gained it.
The championship chief completed underneath two seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton after searching down the Mercedes over the closing laps of the race.
Nevertheless, Verstappen had appeared lower than comfy over his opening stint of the race. He had run in third place behind the 2 Mercedes drivers earlier than being handed by the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri and was even dealing with potential strain from Carlos Sainz Jnr within the Ferrari.
“The start was not superb,” Verstappen conceded within the post-race press convention. “I attempted to maintain up, however I simply ran out of tyres.
“All the things was operating sizzling and I simply struggled for grip. So then Lando received by, then Oscar received by, it began to rain. I had no grip as effectively there. I didn’t wish to take an excessive amount of danger as effectively as a result of it didn’t really feel good. It didn’t really feel comfy, so I used to be like, ‘I’ll simply sit right here and attempt to survive’. And that’s what I did.
“At one level, even Carlos rocked up on the occasion. So I used to be like, ‘geez, it is a actually unhealthy afternoon’.”
Nevertheless, after switching to onerous tyres because the observe dried out following a mid-race bathe, Verstappen managed to catch and go Norris for second and was gaining on chief Hamilton all the way in which to the chequered flag.
“We simply saved it on observe, made the fitting calls from the slick to the intermediates after which from the inters again to the slick tyre, which simply principally saved me in competition, actually,” he mentioned.
“By making the fitting calls at the moment, we have been there on the proper time. And to the tip, with the onerous tyre, that was the fitting name for us, undoubtedly. We may push on the tyre.
“The medium already wasn’t ok for us. So to the tip to go flat-out on the onerous was one of the best we may do and we completed second.
“At one level it was trying like P5 or P6 even. So on a poor afternoon, I might say, when it comes to efficiency, to be second, I’ll take that.”
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