28/08/2023
NEWS STORY
Race-winner, Max Verstappen claims that his team's wrong call on the weather at the start of the race actually made the afternoon more fun.
The Dutchman was speaking following another Bravura performance that delighted his team, his fans, his family, the partisan crowd and his King.
In ever changing conditions the youngster didn't put a foot/wheel wrong, only losing the lead at the start after teammate Sergio Perez got the jump on him in terms of switching to Inters.
"Today they didn't make it easy for us with the weather to make all the time the right calls, but I'm incredibly proud," he said at race end. "I'm Very happy to win here in front of my home crowd.
"I had goosebumps when they were playing the national anthem before the start," he admitted. "Even with all the bad weather, the rain, the fans were still going at it, it was an incredible atmosphere.
"The race itself was very hectic," he added in a masterpiece of understatement. "Lining up on the grid and seeing the rain coming down, it was tough to make the right calls.
"I thought together with the team, they told me the rain is coming but maybe not enough to switch to an Inter, or maybe survive for a few laps so we decided together to stay out for one more lap.
"At that at the end of the day was the wrong call," he continued. "But it made the race definitely more fun."
That first stop saw him lose the lead to teammate Perez.
"From there onwards I had to pass a few cars and close the gap up front," he explained. "Luckily, I think within a few laps, I closed down like ten seconds of the gap so that was very important for the rest of my race."
And then came the infamous undercut.
"When we went onto the slick tyres, the tyres were holding on quite well on my car for the stint and it was very enjoyable to drive. You think you're going to have an easy ride home, and then they tell me like 10-15 laps before the end there's some rain coming again. And this time it was not just some rain, it was quite a lot.
"So we pitted for Inters, and within a lap, it almost becomes undriveable, so we opted to go for an extreme."
Asked about the restart, which saw Fernando Alonso breathing down his neck, Verstappen said: "I knew that I had to survive that first lap. Fernando was pushing very hard behind, I could see him closely in my mirrors. But once I had the temperature in my tyres it was all well-balanced again.
"It's incredible," he said of his ninth successive win, which equals Sebastian Vettel's record feat. "I'll think about it next week. First, I'm going to enjoy this weekend. It's always tough, the pressure is on to perform, and I'm very happy of course to win here.
"It was probably one of the more difficult races to win again. Nine in a row is something I never even thought about."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Zandvoort here.