While today's race might not have been "simply lovely" for Max Verstappen, it was fun.

Passing Oscar Piastri for second on the opening lap, the Dutchman held second until he made a mistake on Lap 16. Later in the race, on one fell swoop, he inherited the lead when the rain returned, catching out Oscar Piastri, while his McLaren teammate pitted.

Rather than pit the Dutchman at a time the majority of the field was stopping Red Bull took the gamble to leave him out a lap longer in the hope that the rain might yet ease off. It didn't.

"We tried something else, it was about to work out, but I can't see the radar, of course, of how the weather is moving in," said the world champion at race end.

"But even if we would have pitted with them a lap later or the lap that I pitted, it would have always been P2 anyway," he insisted. "So it didn't really matter, but it was fun to try and do something different.

"The start was fun," he grinned. However, a subsequent mistake in Turn 11 saw him repassed by local hero Piastri.

"After that, I tried to stay with the McLarens, but like basically every other team we just degged too hard and we overheated our tyres and then the McLarens just take off.

"I gave it my all, but then of course at one point, they really just took off and I tried to just focus on my own race."

The final downpour came at a time everyone had switched to slicks.

"Yeh," he said, the weather started to play up again and it was very difficult out there with the slicks when it started to rain.

"The gap is big, I know that," he said about the difference in pace to McLaren. "That is not going to disappear from here to the next race. But we have to try and stay close.

"Also, on days like today, normally you are P3, we are P2, so that's good."

"While it was "fun" for the Dutchman, team boss, Christian Horner was keen to play down the missed opportunity.

"We looked at the data, he would have still been just behind," insisted the Briton. "That's why we were hoping if the weather... then that would have given us that position.

"That's where you're working with the driver," he continued. "The first two sectors were quicker, the third sector was so much down at that point.

"We knew that the rain wasn't going to hang around for long," he added. "If you could just bank that track position, it's so valuable here because you just can't overtake. So that's what we were rolling the dice a little for.

"McLaren were super conservative. Both of their drivers had big moments. It looked like it might just play out but, if the rain had veered off, then we could have been lucky.

"But congratulations to Lando. He drove a good race today, and in difficult conditions for all of the drivers.

"We take a lot of encouragement out of that race, and the pace we had at the end. It was clear what the pecking order was today in terms of pace."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Albert Park here.