Verstappen: 'I suddenly had so much more grip on the tyres'

In the French Grand Prix, Max Verstappen went in one lap earlier than Lewis Hamilton for his first pit stop. By doing so he managed to overtake the Mercedes driver, but he doesn't know exactly how he did it.

Red Bull themselves didn't expect it

"Yeah, my out lap was good but I didn’t expect the undercut to be so big, but when I went out I suddenly had so much more grip on the tyres everywhere," Verstappen told the FIA press conference. Verstappen was more than three seconds behind Hamilton at the time of stopping, but found himself on the track ahead of the Brit.

"I don’t know how fast Lewis’ stop was or whatever, so I need to look at it again but I think nobody – including us – we never expected to undercut Lewis so it just clearly showed that with new tyres and then of course the tricky conditions out there  - when you’re on used tyres of course it’s easier to lose the car a little bit or whatever because of the wind – so with new tyres you have one lap where of course everything feels a lot better," continued the Red Bull Racing driver.

Tyres didn't last long

Verstappen has to admit that he didn't get to enjoy the fresh set of tyres for very long. "Because as soon as I was ahead the next two laps, they didn’t feel so great any more," he said. The Dutchman therefore chose to be the only one in the top ten to stop for a second time. He was able to close the gap on Hamilton and pass him for the win in the closing stages of the race.