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Max Verstappen believes the experience of his “pretty perfect” Hungarian Grand Prix victory is “very rare” in F1.
The two-time F1 champion took another dominant stride to winning a third consecutive title with a crushing 34-second triumph at the Hungaroring, opening up a 110-point cushion over Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez in the drivers’ standings.
In taking the chequered flag, Verstappen has now won the last seven races, nine of the 11 this season, 24 of the last 33 stretching back to the start of last year, and 44 for his career.
Perhaps most significantly, Red Bull set a new record as the team has now won the last 12 races, breaking a 35-year mark set by the all-conquering 1988 McLaren team that included Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
After passing polesitter Lewis Hamilton on the run down to the first corner, from that moment there was no looking back for Verstappen, who said: “It was a pretty perfect day.
“It started with the actual start where we had a good launch for once, and we then could look after our tyres quite well.
“Every stint we just eked out a bit more of a gap, and the car was honestly really enjoyable to drive. Basically, with the balance I had (in qualifying), it actually worked very well (for the race).”
At this stage, Red Bull and Verstappen appear unbeatable, with nothing seemingly to stop them from having a perfect season, unless involved in an incident, or unreliability strikes, although the RB19 is at present impregnable.
Riding the wave, Verstappen added: “Of course, it’s really enjoyable to work with the whole team and to have this kind of success.
“People probably forget how tough it is to win 12 in a row, even when you have the fastest car. It’s easy to make mistakes, or have an off weekend.
“There were weekends when the gap was probably a bit smaller than we would have liked, but then we had a few weekends where we also surprised ourselves and had a really good race.
“I hope that we can keep the momentum going, keep on trying to learn from the car, from the upgrades we’re bringing to the car towards the end of the season, and also going into next year.”
Asked whether he had experienced anything like this in his career, Verstappen replied: “They are very rare, days like this, that it’s that good.
“Last year, Spa, for example, was probably pretty similar, but then I had to start from the back (14th), so yeah, very rare.
“Normally, it’s not that easy or straightforward.”
