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Max Verstappen claimed his first podium finish of the season in Spain, coming home in third spot despite contact with Lance Stroll. The Dutchman inherited third after Ferrari opted to pit Sebastian Vettel from second place, dropping the German behind Verstappen.
Verstappen made contact with Stroll as a virtual safety car was ending, which caused part of the left side of his front wing to fall off. However, he admits that the understeer wasn't too bad, and that it felt good to be back up on the podium - his first since his win in Mexico last season.
"It feels nice to be on the podium and nice to have a good clean race so yeah, hopefully we can work from here and score a lot of good results,” Verstappen said.
Speaking about his collision with Stroll, the 20-year-old said: "Luckily it hit the outside bit of the wing, so I could continue and just have a little bit more understeer in the high-speed corners but I managed to sort that with some tools so it was okay.
"I kept going and I felt a bit more understeer in turns 3 and 9 and may be braking a bit deeper into the hairpins. But it was not too bad to be honest, I just had some tools and all good. I don’t think it affected me too much. I was trying to be as close as I could to be on the positive side, but I was quite close behind Stroll. I felt that he braked a bit, I was really close, so I just clipped him."
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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Replies (6)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
He got lucky. He did a good job, but the only reason he finish on the podium was because Kimi retired and Vettel had tyre issues. I think Red Bull will do well in Monaco though, so he'll get his chance there.
Patentprutser
Posts: 392
Max had luck with Kimi's unfortune, but I think Kimi would have had an extra pit-stop as well, because of the tyre issues by Ferrari. So Max would have become third anyway. I was wondered by the lap time differences with Ricciardo, why did he lose so much time. it was not only his spin in round 43?
TimberVD
Posts: 42
Not sure. He didn't seem to have any issues. Because on the radio he said he was faster then Max, but at that time was about 2.4 sec behind. Max was clearly preserving tyres and I think Max got the hurry up from the pitwall and then made quite a big gap. Then Ricciardo had his spin. After that he was going purple so there was no issue with his car. Max might simply be more at ease with the track, perhaps his own setup of the car was easier to work with then Daniels, like it was vice versa in Baku I believe.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
He had issues with the mediums he swapped out, thus the extra pitstop, which lead to Max' getting his place. As for if we can say that about everyone: Well, no. Far from everyone got lucky yesterday, but I'd dare say Max was among those who did get lucky.
boudy
Posts: 1,168
Agree with that statement. But you can say such a thing about everyone in the race. For me he was quicker on race pace than Vettel and stuck behind Kimi. He had the upper hand on Ricciardo. Mercedes had the better car all weekend.
mpm001
Posts: 20
I think its more like "Red-Bull hopes Verstappen can reproduce podium performance"