Max on his P2: “One lap more and Raikkonen would have passed me”

Published on 03 July 2016 by Mike Motilall

Max Verstappen has shown his true colours in Austria, in front of his employer’s home crowd and more than a thousand Dutch fans as well. Starting from eighth, a strong race unfolded with his push forward for the podium. In the final lap, that became second due to both Mercedes.

“The car did very well. In the beginning, I was able to overtake the drivers in front of me, so I had some clean air in front of me”, as Max analyses the race at Ziggo. “The Mercedes pulled away from me, but that is quite normal. After that, I was able to race my own race. Only in final part of the race, I was losing a lot of time due to traffic, so my tyres were dropping off very quickly. I had already done 45 laps on them, so those last ten laps were pretty hard.”

Were you not concerned about Kimi Raikkonen in your rear mirrors and in your DRS-zone? “With still eight laps to go, Raikkonen was behind of me and was approaching very fast. It was very hard to defend, but I don’t think he could have overtaken me. If the race had lasted one lap longer, he would have passed me.”

In conclusion, Max says: “We could have done more in qualifying, but we made up for that in the race. It is great to come in second with a Red Bull-car on the Red Bull Ring. I would like to thank the team for that.”