Safety car helped Max Verstappen

After having partly benefited from the clash between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in Spain to achieve his first success in F1 in Spain on the Barcelona route, Max Verstappen once again benefited from the internal struggle Mercedes to get his second podium in the discipline.

Third in the race for a long time and in a fight with Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari), the young F1 prodigy inherited second place after contact between Hamilton and Rosberg left the German with a car bruised and a damaged front wing.

“Finishing second after what happened on the last lap is of course a bonus. End like this, as a pilot Red Bull at the Red Bull Ring, it's a great feeling. » recognizes Verstappen, who also admitted that the Safety Car helped his progress during the race.

« Of course the safety car helped, but I just wanted to continue to see how the tire would last. I told the team that everything was fine. If I had felt that the tire was not going to hold, of course I would have returned to the pits. The cars in front of me were widening the gap and were simply faster, but I was gaining on the cars behind, so there was no reason to stop. »

The Dutchman continues his impressive season with Red Bull since his promotion ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, but expects even more in the races to come.  “I think there is even more potential. You can always improve, but like I said from the first race in Barcelona and until now, I still have to learn. The general pace is there, it's just in qualifying that I have to go for the last hundredths, and be at 100%, but clearly with each race, it's getting better and better. »

Find the full report and analysis of the Austrian Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondents, in issue 2070 of AUTOhebdo, available tomorrow evening in digital version, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.