Max Verstappen never believed he would win 10 grands prix in a row as he became the first driver in F1 history to achieve the feat.
Verstappen led a Red Bull one-two in the Italian Grand Prix to break the decade-long record of nine wins he shared with Sebastian Vettel.
It was a result he was forced to work for, starting second and having to battle with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc in the opening stages in Monza.
He went on to win the Italian GP to rewrite the F1 history books.
“I never would have believed that that was possible,” Verstappen added of the record.
“We had to work for it today and that made it definitely a lot more fun.
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“Honestly, I’m just very proud of the whole team effort, the whole year already,” he added.
“What we are doing at the moment, winning every race this year, it’s something that we definitely are enjoying because I don’t think these kind of seasons come around very often.
“That’s the same, of course, with winning 10 in a row.”
The Dutchman was forced to fight for the win.
In the early laps, he found himself trapped behind Sainz; although he had a faster car, his straight-line speed deficit to the Ferraris meant he could never quite get close enough to make a pass.
It was only when Sainz’s tyres began to give up towards the end of the opening stint that the championship leader found a way through, immediately sprinting clear.
“We had good pace. I think we were good on the tyres, but they had a lot of top speed,” Verstappen observed.
“It was so hard to get close and get a move into Turn 1, so I had to force him into a mistake.
“Luckily it came at some point where he locked up, and then I had better traction out of Turn 2.
“From there onwards, we could again do our own race.”
The victory came despite an issue within the Red Bull which saw the Dutchman ease off in the closing laps as he nursed the car to the flag.
Over the radio, he was instructed to drop back from Pierre Gasly, who he was coming up to lap, with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase stating it was “quite an urgent request.”
“I haven’t spoken to the year yet about what the issue, really – they just told me what I had to do and I did that to the end,” Verstappen explained.
“Luckily, because we had the gap behind so I could just take it quite easy.”
Verstappen ultimately won by six seconds over Perez, dropping almost two seconds to his team-mate on the final lap.
He now holds a 145-point advantage at the top of the drivers’ standings with a maximum of 232 still up for grabs in the remaining eight races.
Red Bull is in a similarly commanding position, with a 310-point gap to Mercedes in the constructors’ championship with just 397 left on offer.
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