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Max Verstappen lost out to Ferrari's Charles Leclerc at the Austrian GP as his Red Bull suffered from too much tire degradation. Speaking to the media after the race, the Dutchman reflected on his first loss to Charles Leclerc on track since the Australian GP and admitted he didn't expect Ferrari to be as strong as it was.
Max Verstappen was overtaken by the Ferrari driver three times in the race as Red Bull was forced to pit early every time because of tire degradation. Ferrari, on the other hand, did not have any issues with the tires and, hence, it was easier for Leclerc to keep pushing and take the win at Red Bull's home track.
Max Verstappen said:
“I expected them to be strong, I just didn’t expect them to be this good. And I think we were just a bit down on what we expected. It was a bit more difficult than I expected it to be. Basically, on any tyre I was just struggling a lot for pace after a few laps, just a lot of deg. It’s something I can’t really explain right now, why it was so high, because I think normally we are quite okay on the tyres. I expected it to be tough but I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
The Red Bull driver still took the positives out of the weekend where despite having a worse car, he conceded only five points to Leclerc. He said:
“So it’s just something we need to analyse and understand why this happened. Even on a bad day, let’s say an off day, to only lose five points over the whole weekend is I think still good.”
Max Verstappen's teammate had a worse weekend in Austria
Sergio Perez arguably had a worse weekend in Austria as he was punted into the gravel by George Russell on the first lap of the race. As a result, Perez suffered too much damage to his car to continue with the race. The Mexican felt that he had given the Mercedes driver enough room. He said:
“It was a big shame that we had our race ended so early. I had the whole race ahead of me and I thought I had good opportunities coming my way, so it was very painful. We had a lot of damage to the car and we were going nowhere so we had to retire. I gave all the room I could to George on lap one, there was enough room for both cars not to crash and unfortunately, we ended up colliding, I don't know what else I could have done.”
Red Bull has now lost two races in a row after a stretch where it had won six consecutive races. The Austrian team will be hoping to make a comeback at the French GP.
