Max Verstappen has won his first Grand Prix of 2021 in Imola. After the disappointment of Bahrain and yesterday's qualifying, this victory comes not a moment too soon. The Red Bull Racing driver is a happy goat in front of the Ziggo Sport camera.
"Finally a good start," says Verstappen immediately in his interview with Jack Plooij. That's been an Achilles' heel of the Honda engine in recent years, but thanks to some hard work the Japanese now seem to have found a solution. You could even say that Verstappen owes this victory to a certain extent, although the pit stop was also important.
Perfect moment for Red Bull Racing's pit stop
"When that track is so difficult to drive with only one dry line, you never really want to be first [on slicks]," Verstappen said of the moment he decided to go in for slicks. "You actually want to wait for someone to take that gamble and then you can see from the sector times if it's good or not."
"But Vettel [on slicks] then just started to run those times that were a bit faster than the intermediates, so I do think it was really the right call on the lap where we did that. One lap earlier it would have been a lot harder.
The predicament at the restart, where Verstappen lost control, is something he can now laugh about. "That's a secret tactic to warm up the tyres," he says with a wink.