Max Verstappen has admitted Red Bull is “not in that same flow” as last season despite praising the team’s calls as he triumphed in Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix.
Verstappen was beginning to pressure polesitter George Russell as the dried track in the opening stages when a wide moment at Turn 1 helped Lando Norris through.
However, an error from Russell under braking at the last chicane handed Verstappen second and then a well-timed Safety Car slashed the advantage Norris had built.
McLaren’s mistake to not bring Norris in at that stage enabled Verstappen to retrieve the lead and he maintained that position to the flag to claim his 60th career win.
The Dutchman expressed that prevailing was even more “rewarding” as he overcame close competition and treacherous conditions to return to the podium’s top step.
“It’s very rewarding,” Verstappen stated. “I mean, it’s never an easy race. It’s easy to make mistakes, especially on the inters when they were almost becoming slicks.
“It was very easy to go off because the track was drying in most places, but in some corners it was still a bit too wet to go to slicks. That made it just very, very difficult.
“But yeah, it’s a lot of fun to drive these kind of races now and then. You don’t want it all the time because that’s too stressful, but I had a lot of fun out there today.”
Verstappen commended the strategic choices the Red Bull pit wall decided upon as the weather evolved to avoid replicating the blunder that cost McLaren a victory.
“You’re very focused, but you try to remain as calm as you can be, and also the communication to the pit wall and them to you to ask what are the conditions,” he said.
“And I definitely think as a team, you know, we did make the right calls today. And yeah, that, of course, is also very important.”
However, Verstappen reiterated that his electrical issue in practice shows that the Austrian outfit is not operating at the same impenetrable level it managed last term.
“I mean, I think we are all very focused,” the three-time champion commented. “We are still doing a lot of things right.
“But for whatever reason, we are not in that same flow as we had last year, where everything just seemed to be going really well for us. At most places, no reliability issues.
“And I don’t know, for whatever reason, it’s all a bit more difficult this year. Some things are a bit hard to explain as well.
“Sometimes it almost feels like you’re a bit in a spiral and it maybe takes a bit of time to get out of it. But yeah, we are for sure on top of everything.
“Of course, there are always things that you can do better. But yeah, we’ll come out of this week and analyse everything again and try to improve.”
