Verstappen rues balance issues and high degradation for tough home race

F1 Grand Prix, GP Netherlands, Circuit Park Zandvoort

Reigning champion Max Verstappen had to settle for second place in his home race, with the Dutchman stating that the high tyre wear contributed to his first defeat at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Verstappen had a great start, and was clean and away into the first corner. From there he led the opening few laps, but he couldn’t pull away from Norris as he started to overuse his tyres.

However, the McLaren driver managed the overtake the Dutchman into the Tarzan corner, and he pulled away to win the Dutch Grand Prix by a 23-second gap.

Reflecting on his race, Verstappen noted that the high tyre wear contributed to his first defeat on home turf.

“Today the start was good and we got a lead in front, which was a positive start. However, once I was overtaken it became about managing my own race as I know I didn’t have the pace to catch Lando.

“The car balance has been difficult this weekend, we just didn’t have the pace and we struggled with our tyres. I tried my best but it just didn’t work today and we had quite a big gap to Lando. We didn’t have our best weekend and we will go back and analyse what we can do better.

Despite losing out to Norris, the reigning champion reflected on his F1 career after having completed his 200th F1 race at Zandvoort.

“It is my 200th race and it was nice to drive in front of my home crowd. Those races have gone by quickly and when I grew up this was something I thought about; I imagine I will look back and be proud of this moment.

“It was great to be here in front of home Grand Prix and in front of fans, but it is a shame as you always want to win for them, concluded Verstappen.

His team-mate Sergio Perez had a much smoother weekend than in recent months. The Mexican qualified fifth, but lost a spot to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at the start. However, the Mexican displayed very encouraging race pace, and his performance on the hard compound was very much comparable to Verstappen’s pace.

“I had a great start but unfortunately was squeezed into turn one and then lost a position to Charles. In the beginning things were looking really good, but we just didn’t have the pace to keep up, as the other cars started to pull ahead.

“We were struggling with the grip on the hard tyre and balance all race. We have a lot of work to do, but it has been a good weekend in terms of understanding the car issues and we can go forward to take this as the base and to develop from here.

“I also feel like this is a very extreme scenario with the tail wind corners and we struggled more than other teams, Monza will be a different kind of track and we hope more positive.

“We will keep our heads down and be fully focused on getting to the bottom of our issues, we’ve got a lot of work to do to understand where the pace has gone, especially in the race, so hopefully we can get back up to speed in Monza next week,” concluded Perez.