Verstappen: "If I hadn't overtaken Hamilton he would have just driven off"

Red Bull Racing did not have an easy weekend in Spain. Mercedes looked stronger throughout the weekend, but it was Max Verstappen who took the lead on lap one and held it for much of the race. In the end, however, he was unable to hold off Lewis Hamilton after Mercedes brought him in for an extra pit stop.

Verstappen was remarkably calm after the race. Looking back, he therefore did not have a bad feeling about the weekend. "I feel good about it, but as a team it wasn't the smoothest weekend, we definitely lacked pace throughout the race," Verstappen said in a Red Bull Racing press release. "It is what it is and we still secured second place and good points for the Team. It's still early in the season so we just have to make sure that we keep pushing and applying the pressure and start winning some more races."

Areas for improvement at Red Bull Racing

Outside of speed, there was another area where Mercedes outperformed Red Bull, and where Verstappen believes Red Bull needs to improve. "I think our tyre degradation but also the general pace of the car wasn't good enough to really challenge Mercedes in Barcelona. I got ahead of Lewis in Turn 1 but if I hadn't, he would have just driven off," Verstappen continued.

"Leading the race for so long made it look tougher to lose out on the win. We just need to keep on improving," said Verstappen.