"The car was quick today"- Max Verstappen credits good tire management for his victory at 2022 F1 French GP

Max Verstappen made the most of Charles Leclerc's crash at the 2022 F1 French GP to go on and win the race.

The two drivers had an intense battle during the opening stages of the race, with Leclerc staying in the lead until his crash on Lap 18. Once Verstappen inherited the lead, he never looked back and nursed his tires beautifully on his way to the checkered flag.

Speaking in a post-race interview in parc fermé, the Red Bull driver said:

“We had really good pace from the start, I was putting pressure on Charles. Following around here, with this heat, the tyres are overheating a lot so I could never really go for a move - only once. We just tried to stay calm, stay close... we pitted a bit earlier and from there onwards you never know how the race is going to go. The car was quick today.”

While expressing concern for Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen described how he took care of his tires until the race end, saying:

“Of course, unlucky for Charles and I hope he’s okay. From there onwards, I just did my race and looked after the tyres. With the pit-lane being so long, you couldn’t do another stop so you had to stay out. The tyres were wearing a lot so it was about looking after the tyres to the end.”

With this race win, Verstappen extended his lead in the drivers' standings over rival Leclerc. As F1 heads into its summer break, a race win for the Dutchman complemented by a generous helping of points will definitely help carry the momentum for him and Red Bull into the rest of the season.

---

Max Verstappen is 'very open, honest and easy' to work with, says his F1 race engineer

Max Verstappen seems to be making life easier for his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. GP, as Lambiase is fondly known, recently explained his experience of working with the reigning world champion to the Red Bulletin Heroes Verstappen Edition magazine, saying:

“The relationship between a driver and a race engineer is based on mutual trust. The more direct a driver is, the more he trusts the team. My experience is that if a driver stops giving his honest opinion about the car and starts circling it, the results get worse. Max is direct, but so am I. That makes working with him very open, honest and easy.”

Verstappen too appears to share the same emotion when it comes to GP as the Red Bull driver had been quoted earlier to say that he would quit F1 if his race engineer was to leave. The strong bond between the two has been on display multiple times throughout this season and earlier, taking the Dutchman to his maiden title in 2021.