Verstappen: 'Flying start at Imola was also a surprise for me'.

Looking back at his glorious win at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Max Verstappen sees the benefit of making a good start, and confesses to being surprised at the Honda power available to him on the start line at Imola.

"It’s never easy, a race like this," the Dutchman began in his retrospective in conversation with Autosport. "It’s quite stressful out there to make the right calls." After conquering the hard-fought P1, Verstappen managed to finish the race with over twenty seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

Verstappen also knows that the flying start in the rain, although also a surprise for him, was the key to his Grand Prix. "The key, I think, was to have that good launch, which was also a bit of a surprise to me!"

The Dutchman continued, referring to the much-discussed recent improvements to the Honda engine: "After last year, where we always struggled in the wet, over the winter and the beginning of the year we definitely made some improvements with that and [last weekend] it was very good."