Verstappen expected faster Ferrari: "Mercedes was so fast"

The virtual safety car and the normal safety car played into Max Verstappen's hands during his home race at Circuit Zandvoort. Without it, the Dutchman might have had a more difficult race against Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen is somewhat surprised that it was not Ferrari, but Mercedes that posed the threat this weekend.

Verstappen won the Dutch Grand Prix, but seemed to be in trouble mid-race due to a strategically strong move by Mercedes. The team of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell chose to stop only once. The team had that luxury because the white hard tyre worked well for the Mercedes W13. In the end, Mercedes lost the chance of victory with a tactical mistake, causing Hamilton to fall back to P4 and Russell to take P2.

Verstappen expected Ferrari behind him

Verstappen won the race, but said at the FIA press conference after the race that he was somewhat surprised that Mercedes were behind him and challenging him for the win. Verstappen: "I was just surprised that they were that quick on the harder compounds. I have to say these tyres are very stiff, you know, the C1, C2. And they just didn't seem to really switch on for us as good as they did for them. That's I think what made it a little bit more complicated for us today. But then, once we were able to switch back to the soft."

That Ferrari were not the second team on the track this time was a surprise: "I expected probably them to be a little bit slower," Verstappen continued. "And I expected Ferrari to be a bit faster." In a race where tyre strategy was important, Ferrari once again let it down. The characteristics of Zandvoort were expected to be good for F1-75. In this season, Ferrari's strategy is more often a mess than it is in order and again this weekend the team proved unable to cope. The blunder at Carlos Sainz's pit stop was the absolute low point of the weekend.