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In a season of extreme superlatives, the number of records that have fallen to
Max Verstappen is so enormous that the significance of each landmark seems to
shrink under the mass of all the others. But in his last time out, in São
Paulo, the Oracle Red Bull ace picked up one that carried particular weight, a
71-year-old totem that until this year seemed impassable. In taking his most
recent victory, Max’s win rate for the season jumped ahead of the 75 percent
rate, achieved by Alberto Ascari in 1952, to hit a remarkable 85 percent with
his 17th win of the season. If nothing else, the number and the record
underline just how incredible Max’s third title season has been. To pick
through its high points and to ask if there were any lows, the Red Bulletin sat
down with Max to sift the truly spectacular from the merely marvelous.
JUSTIN HYNES—Take us back to Bahrain? Did you know from the start that the
RB19 was a world beater?
Max Verstappen:
It wasn’t a wow moment. We were very neutral. It felt good, but you don’t know
what the others are doing. You just have to remain calm and focus on your run
plan. It was very steady, we didn’t really run into a lot of trouble and we
could run quite well with the car. It felt quite straightforward. We really
expected it to be close [versus other teams] into Bahrain and I think we were
all positively surprised with how good the car was there. But that’s one track.
Of course, when you go to the next tracks, and you can see that the car is
quick, especially in the races, that’s always very promising. I think we had a
lot of great results in tough conditions as well—where it was easy to make a
mistake as a team, even if you would have a dominant car. But for most of the
races, we just did an incredible job.
READ MORE:Max Verstappen’s reaction to Las Vegas GP opening ceremony goes Beyond…
It wasn’t instant dominance. You had a mechanical in Saudi Arabia and you
weren’t entirely comfortable with the car. When did that change?
Baku. It was maybe not fantastic that I didn’t win the race there but I
learned a lot. Sometimes that’s more important than actually winning a race
because from there onwards, of course, we had a great run. It was just a few
settings with the car—a combination between brake bias, differential locking
and engine braking. These things can be quite sensitive when you’re still
learning about the car. But that was an important race to try and figure that
out.
