Max Verstappen has hailed his achievement in breaking Sebastian Vettel’s record for the number of victories with Red Bull as better than he could have imagined.
In a season of superlatives, Verstappen delivered another masterclass performance to win the Monaco Grand Prix, the fourth time in six races he has taken the chequered flag this season, and the 39th time with Red Bull.
This latest success, in conjunction with a wretched weekend for team-mate Sergio Perez, means Verstappen is now 39 points clear of the Mexican driver and firmly on course to land a third successive F1 title.
Assessing his achievement in overhauling Vettel, Verstappen said: “If you have a good car for a while, you know, you can break these kinds of numbers.
“It’s great. I would have never thought I would be in this position in my career. When I grew up, I wanted to be a Formula One driver, and winning these races is amazing.
“It’s better than I could have ever imagined.”
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Verstappen ‘clipped a few barriers’ as rain arrived
The race around the Principality was not all plain sailing for Verstappen despite the 28-second winning margin to Fernando Alonso in his Aston Martin, the 41-year-old’s best result in F1 for almost nine years.
The arrival of rain from lap 51 added an element of jeopardy that Verstappen managed to overcome, although it was not without its moments.
“It was quite hectic towards the end,” said Verstappen. “But also the whole race was also all about like management.
“Fernando starting on the hard tyre made me do a very long stint, probably almost double what we would have liked (on the medium).
“But because of the rain in the area, we couldn’t really stop. If it would have been nice and sunny, I would have stopped, put the hard tyre on, you catch up, and you wait until Fernando does his pit stop.
“But we couldn’t do that, because the risk of rain was around so I had to stay out. The tires were graining, I had to go through that grading phase, which wasn’t that easy, but then luckily, it picked up a little bit.
“Then, of course, it started to rain. With really worn tyres to go through there (the wet areas of the track) was not really enjoyable.
“I clipped a few barriers, especially on my in lap. It was very, very difficult.
“But even on the intermediates after that, it was still very slippery through the second sector. It was quite wet there.
“The hard bit is that you have a good lead but, of course, you don’t want to risk too much, but you also don’t want to drive too slow because then you have no temperature in your tyres.
“So just trying to find the middle ground initially was a bit tough, but then after a few laps, I settled in and felt quite comfortable.”
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