How Max Verstappen “amazed” Red Bull and left team speechless at Dutch GP
Red Bull have explained how Max Verstappen left the team speechless during the Dutch Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen’s overtake on Lando Norris at the start of the Dutch Grand Prix left Red Bull with “no words”.
Verstappen finished second in front of his home crowd at the Dutch Grand Prix after capitalising on a late retirement for championship hopeful Norris, who suffered an oil leak in his McLaren with eight laps remaining.
Four-time world champion Verstappen had been running third for much of the race but did manage to split the McLaren drivers early on with a bold move on the opening lap, having opted to start on soft tyres.
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Verstappen nearly lost control of his RB21 with a slide at Turn 2, but gathered his car and still managed to pull off the overtake on Norris, something which raised eyebrows at Red Bull.
“I tell you what, on the pit wall lap one, as much as we work with him every day, we were still amazed by what he managed to put up,” Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said.
“So that's how it was. It was like, ‘how did he do that? And how did he make the move? And how did he keep it on track?’.
“It's a bit like in Spa when he got the McLaren on the sprint start. He knew he had one shot. He knew it was now. And he gave it all. And he still leaves us with no words when you see that. So, big well done.
“Looking at Max, and the way he manages his own race, with all the attention, with all the pressure he has here, you can still see he's very, very calm.
“He has a very well-structured way to approach the weekend. From that perspective, it was not more hectic, neither, I hope, for him, nor for the team. We just got good energy from the fans.”
Max Verstappen brushes off ‘little moment’
Verstappen explained the scary first-lap moment from his perspective after the race.
“I tried to send it into Turn 3, but unfortunately, there was too much sand in Turn 2 from the middle of the track to the outside," the Dutchman said.
"I knew that we had the softer compounds, so I tried to make it work on that first lap.
"It wasn't easy. I gave it everything at the start to move forward. A little moment in Turn 2.
"But after that, we just had to do our own race. Unfortunately, we didn't have the pace of the McLarens. Then we got a bit lucky with one retiring.
"But in general, to be on the podium here is a great result. So to be in second, I think it's a really, really good achievement for us.”
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