Max Verstappen had to nurse some temperature issues towards the end of F1 Italian GP, as he and Christian Horner talk about the 10 wins.
While the start had some dramas for Red Bull’s Verstappen in clearing Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in F1 Italian GP, once he got through the Spaniard, it was plain sailing for the Dutchman. He eked out a good gap to the Ferrari drivers en-route to a record-breaking win.
But towards the end, it wasn’t as plain sailing as post-race, it was revealed that Verstappen was managing the high temperature on his car. Considering the gap he had, it wasn’t too dangerous but what happened to Yuki Tsunoda was somewhere playing up.
“I haven’t spoken to the team yet about that issue,” said Verstappen when asked about it just after the grand prix. “Or what the issue was really. So yeah, they just told me what I had to do and I did that to the end. Luckily, of course, we had the gap behind, so I could just take it quite easy to the end.”
Team boss Horner, though, clarified what it was but he noted he managed it well eventually. “He was managing some temperature issues, we just didn’t want to take any risk,” he said. “It’s a stinking hot day and we had a couple of temperatures that were under control, but there’s a bunch of cars ahead of Gasly and we just didn’t want to run in dirty air. So you know, that’s why we took it a little bit easier the last few laps.”
The win was not just any win for Verstappen as he created a new record of 10 consecutive victories in F1 beating the previous of nine by Sebastian Vettel. Although he is not the one to talk about statistics but being part of one is always something to be proud of for him.
“I think, of course, it’s something you don’t expect to happen,” said Verstappen. “I never thought at the beginning of the season that something like this was possible. So yeah, very proud. Honestly, I’m just very proud also, you know, of the whole team effort, the whole year already.
“I mean, what we are doing at the moment, winning every race this year, is something that we definitely are enjoying, because I don’t think these kinds of seasons come around very often. And that’s the same, of course, with winning 10 in a row. But also just very happy with the race. In general, we had good pace again, we could look after our tyres.
“It was quite an interesting little battle in the beginning to try and get a move into Turn 1, but we just didn’t have the top speed to do so. So I had to wait for a tiny mistake or tiny lock-up or whatever. And, at one point, you know, Carlos had a little lock-up, which then made me have a good run out of Turn 2 and once I got in the lead, yeah, I could just focus on my own pace. And yeah, the car felt really nice to drive,” summed up Verstappen.
His team boss noted a different shine on Verstappen ahead of the grand prix considering the feat he was going to achieve but it didn’t deter them to go flat out while challenging the two Ferrari cars at their home event. “We were flat out, we were pushing incredibly hard and the Ferraris were fighting hard and it was a straight fight,” he said.
“I think Max is very smart in that situation where he was pushing Carlos’s vulnerabilities to get him to use his tyre. And then obviously got close a couple of times down at Turn 1, but then was finally able to make it stick. I wouldn’t say he was nervous ahead of the race, but I would say you could definitely feel that his focus was razor sharp more than usual. You could see that it definitely meant something to him.”
Here’s Toto Wolff on ‘perfection’ records
Here’s how F1 Italian GP panned out
Here’s Lando Norris on partnering Max Verstappen
