Verstappen: "I'm not disappointed, we were just too slow"

F1 News

9 May 2021 at 17:23
  • GPblog.com

The outcome of the Spanish Grand Prix came as a hard blow to Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing. The race seemed to be in Verstappen's hands, but a clever strategy from Mercedes, who had more speed on the medium tyres, meant he could not stop Lewis Hamilton from overtaking.

Hamilton was brought in for a second time midway through the race, and then began to gain ground on Verstappen. He reached that earlier than predicted, and the Red Bull's worn tyres allowed him to overtake him in the final stages of the race.

Red Bull lacked speed compared to Mercedes

Verstappen himself is less disappointed than you might expect, as he feels he did everything he could to win. "You more or less saw it coming, " he said to Sky Sports after the race. "Personally I'm not disappointed because I tried everything, but we were just too slow. After the first stop, when we were both driving on mediums, I already saw that he was much faster."

He continued: "It's almost impossible to be between one and 1.2 seconds the whole time here. So we mainly tried to keep my tyres whole, but when he made that stop I knew it was over."

"But that's not going to sit in my head. I just keep doing my best to get the best possible result, there's not much else you can do," said the Dutchman.