Verstappen: "I don't get emotional often, but I was close to tears that day"

To Verstappen's mind, that time has gone very quickly, he revealed in a Red Bull Racing press release. "I didn’t know it had been that many! I must be getting old," he laughs. "I enjoy being part of the team for as long as I have. The atmosphere in the whole team is great and there is a lot of motivation and energy here from everyone. We have a really good working relationship but also besides that, off track we also get on very well and have a lot of fun so it’s very nice for me to be part of the team and hopefully of course for a lot more years."

Verstappen has special memories of Barcelona

The Barcelona circuit is of course a special one for Verstappen, as it was there that he scored his first victory. "Barcelona will always hold special memories for me. Your first F1 win is pretty emotional, especially when it is a bit of a shock to everyone as it was my debut for the team," the Dutchman said. "I don’t really get emotional that often but I was pretty close to tears that day and so was my dad. Everything flashes through your head of how you got to Formula One. It wasn’t all easy and people think that when you are winning it looks pretty easy but you have to do the hard work to get there."

The Portuguese Grand Prix was not the easiest for Verstappen, and he hopes that will be different in Barcelona. "I think it can be a good track for us, but I do expect Mercedes to be very quick too so it’s going to be very close again and it’s just going to depend on who finds the best set-up. We know Barcelona is a normal track in terms of grip levels, unlike Portugal, so there we can see the real pace of the cars again," Verstappen said.