Verstappen refuses to jump to conclusions: "We will never know"

Charles Leclerc' s retirement allowed Max Verstappen to win the French Grand Prix, but without his rival's crash the Dutchman would have had a good chance of winning as well. This was also Verstappen's opinion during the post-race press conference.

"We will never know because we cannot swap cars, but it looked good from our side," began Verstappen, who said he was pleased to find Red Bull Racing were competitive from the start of the race. This is in contrast to Austria, where Verstappen had an excellent start but was unable to hold on to the lead.

Verstappen happy with Red Bull balance

He continued: "This time I think we were a lot more competitive. Of course, our straightline speed was very beneficial, but because of that, of course, in the high-speed we had to be a bit more careful." Continuing to drive in Leclerc's DRS also caused the Red Bull driver to suffer from overheated tyres, which led to Red Bull calling him in early for a tyre change.

Verstappen had expected Ferrari 's pace to be faster and was therefore somewhat surprised at how well he was able to keep up with his rival in the early stages of the race. "I thought it would be very hard to follow. But immediately, I could see that our balance was not bad," he continued.

After another DNF for Leclerc, Verstappen is in a better position than ever: the reigning world champion leads the championship by as much as 63 points. However, no conclusions can be drawn from this just yet, the Dutchman argues. "A lot of things can happen and I just want to stay focused. We need a lot more good results," said Verstappen, who expects Ferrari to be 'really, really fast' in Hungary.