Max Verstappen said his performance at the Italian Grand Prix was “better than expected” and the win marked a “step forward with the behavior of the car.”
Verstappen took his third win at Monza and the first pole-to-flag victory since Charles Leclerc in 2019 at the Italian circuit.
The Red Bull driver lost his lead on Lap 2 to McLaren’s Lando Norris after Verstappen was forced to cut the corner and give the place back to avoid a penalty. But once he fought for the position back on Lap 4, his pace looked untouchable for the remainder of the race as he finished 19 seconds ahead of the McLaren drivers who became entangled in a team orders swap.
The Italian Grand Prix is Formula 1’s fastest race, with Verstappen also setting a new lap record in qualifying on Saturday.
When asked how sweet the victory was, Verstappen said: “A bit better than expected.
“But once I got back in the lead, I just tried to focus on my own pace and it kept on going, going well. I would say only the last maybe six to eight laps of that stint I started to struggle a little bit on the medium [tire]. But up until that point, yeah, it was nice for once.”
He added: “The car was doing a little bit more what I liked. It just seems like this weekend has been another step forward with the behavior of the car and that also then shows in the race, I think. So that was a big positive for us.
“Then, of course, we did a bit more of a normal strategy, you know, medium to hard. Of course, McLaren stayed out to try and gamble for the safety car, and I think that’s why the gap is a little bit bigger than it should have been. But still for us, an incredible weekend.”
The defending champion went into the weekend outside title hopes and 70 points behind Lando Norris, with only two wins this year. In addition, the Red Bull team has experienced turmoil with team principal Christian Horner sacked in July and new boss Laurent Mekies still in his first few races since taking over as team principal.
But Verstappen said the team have made a step forward with the car.
“Before it felt like you were a passenger in the car. We had some races where it was just not balanced. And now, finally, there was more balance in the car and then the tires also behave a little bit more normal.”
But he stressed the team aren’t “back.”
“I think it’s still a bit track dependent. Here you drive low downforce. It always seems like our car is a little bit more competitive when it’s low- to medium-downforce. So it’s not like suddenly now we are back. It’s not like we can fight, I think, every single weekend. But the positive is that we seem to understand a little bit more what we need to do with the car to be more competitive.
“So I hope that that carries on into the coming rounds as well, and some tracks will be a bit better than others.”
Verstappen’s win has cut the points gap down to 63 points behind Norris in second with eight races remaining.
Formula 1 heads to Baku in Azerbaijan in two weeks time.
