Verstappen does it on his own: "Difficult to say Ferrari helped"

Max Verstappen is proudly at the top of the F1 rankings with eight wins out of 13 this season, despite not having the strongest car in nearly every race. Ferrari have blundered a lot this season, but the Dutchman is reluctant to say that the Italians have helped him to the lead.

Verstappen seems to want to draw mainly on his own strength and the strength of Red Bull. The Dutchman is 80 points ahead of runner-up Charles Leclerc and his team leads the championship by almost 100 points. Despite Ferrari's fast cars, the equipment is by no means always reliable and neither are the pit wall staff and track staff. Strategy errors and Leclerc's driving mistakes are piling up, which is why Verstappen has secured his big lead.

Verstappen relies on his own strength

The reigning world champion sees things differently. At the FIA press conference after the race he says: "I think everyone always tries to do their best and sometimes that's of course a bit harder to achieve but yeah, I find that difficult to comment because nobody does things on purpose and everyone always wants of course to try and get the best result out of it." Verstappen knows from his own experience that every driver always wants to get the best out of a weekend and does his utmost to do so. In a way, the driver from Limburg is standing up for his rivals at Ferrari.

Verstappen: "We also dropped quite a few points as well from our side by having issues but yeah, I find that difficult to say that they helped me because at the end of the day you always have to perform yourself and as a team." Verstappen's response shows the self-assurance of the reigning world champion. Although it can be shown that Ferrari lost more unnecessary points than Red Bull, Verstappen seems to know that the most important and difficult thing is to finish first yourself.