Max Verstappen is not too disappointed with the loss of victory at the Spanish Grand Prix because he believes that Red Bull simply did not have Mercedes’ pace in the race, and the difference in speed on fresher tyres allowed Lewis Hamilton to easily overtake him at the end of the race.
Verstappen qualified 0.036 seconds behind Hamilton in Mercedes and Red Bull seemed to have the similiar pace in Barcelona, but in the race Hamilton easily followed Verstappen who took the lead in the first corner and after a change of strategy made up for more than 20 seconds on the new tyres.
At the end of the race, Hamilton easily overtook Verstappen on fresher tyres and achieved his third victory this season, the fifth in a row in Spain and the 98th victory in Formula 1, while in the drivers’ standings he leads with 14 points ahead of Verstappen.
“I tried everything I could today and took the lead at Turn 1 but from there we were just lacking a bit of pace to Mercedes,” said Verstappen.
” Of course we wanted to win but I cannot feel too disappointed as I did everything I could out there and maximized the opportunities.”
“Even if we had looked at another strategy and done a two stop and pitted before them, we wouldn’t have made the time up as they were just faster than us. I know how fast I can go and where the limit of the car is and when they can do a free stop behind it is easy for them to do a different strategy.”
“I pretty much knew that when he pitted for the second time that he would come back at me on the new tyres a bit like Hungary 2019 and although I did everything I could I was a bit of a sitting duck.”
“The pace difference on the tyres made it an easy pass for Lewis and then I was able to at least keep second place and take Fastest Lap. It was just a day where we lacked a bit of pace and second was the best result possible so now we need to look at why they seem to have jumped ahead a bit in terms of race pace.”
