F1 | Belgian GP | Verstappen happy with the podium but “not here to finish third”
Max Verstappen once again stepped on the podium alongside Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton. This time, to put it in his own words, “it was a bit lonely”, so he is determined to do more in the future.
“I love this track but the race was not really the most exciting from my side” states Max Verstappen after the 2020 Belgian GP.
Indeed, despite having kept Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas in firing range for most of the race, after the first couple of corners his day was “a bit lonely”.
“It wasn’t really much of a fight and I just tried to do my own race and maximise the result. On the medium tyre I didn’t have a lot of grip and then on the hard I was initially trying to put pressure on Valtteri but he was told to speed up and was able to build a good gap, so after that it was a bit lonely.”
The only wheel-to-wheel action of the weekend for the Dutchman came on the opening lap, when he had to fend off a speedy Daniel Ricciardo, but already at Malmedy everything was quiet once for all.
Even when the Mercedes drivers start to suffer tyres’ degradation, Verstappen was asked by the pitwall to manage his rubber as well: “There was not much action up front unfortunately and the tyre wear was quite high so we couldn’t really push. I had some vibrations towards the end of the race so I really had to manage my tyres, I took no risks and brought it home.”
“Overall, we had a good weekend and the car balance was nice so we can be pleased with that. We are not here to finish third and we want more but it is always good to be on the podium.”
Thank you guys for electing me Driver of The Day on such a day. It was a tough weekend emotionnaly. Today was a very important race personnaly, and I gave everything I had. I wanted to do very well for Anthoine, and honored him the best possible way. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/w4RNUH66vj
— PIERRE GASLY 🇫🇷 (@PierreGASLY) August 30, 2020
