Max Verstappen spoke to the media extensively on Monday as the brand new world champion. In conversation with GPblog, amongst others, he discussed the competitive battle with Lewis Hamilton, which he eventually managed to win.
Although the Dutchman was the rightful world champion based on the statistics, Verstappen realised that things didn't happen by themselves this season. His team surprised on several occasions this race year, causing Mercedes to take some serious blows. The final knockout was in Abu Dhabi when Verstappen overtook his rival on the final lap.
"It’s been a tough season," Verstappen stated. "We had some dominant races. In general, I think Mercedes was the stronger team. It’s been a really enjoyable battle having two teams fighting and pushing flat out until the end, of course sometimes you think this might not be it, we might not hang on."
Verstappen decided to fight on
Despite this, Verstappen did not give up. "There are always surprises and I think there are some races we won which we shouldn’t. Also, I had a bit of bad luck of course with the tyre getting taken out. We lost also a lot of points by that. All in all, it’s been an intense but crazy season."