Max Verstappen says he was unable to fight with the McLaren drivers in the Dutch Grand Prix because he is racing “in a different league” to the two title contenders.
Oscar Piastri held onto the lead at the start in Zandvoort but Verstappen was able to overtake Lando Norris and tried to attack Piastri. From there he soon lost second place to Norris and was not able to mount another challenge despite multiple Safety Car restarts and running softer compound tires, and says it’s not worth risking too much battling the McLarens.
“I hoped for a little bit more [in the race], but quite quickly I realized the pace was not there,” Verstappen said. “It always seems like in the race we just struggle more than over one lap with the tire behavior, with the car, and that was very obvious again. So, I just tried to manage my pace, but that basically meant it was more of a fight with the cars behind me than whatever was happening in front of me.
“The start was alright, to be honest. Then I tried to go around the outside in Turn 1. Then into Turn 2, but there’s always a lot of sand in that corner from the middle of the track to the edge. With the soft compound I just still pushed the entry and then went a bit sideways heading into Turn 3, but it was all okay.
“I still wanted to have a bit of fun out there. When I got ahead [of Norris], I just followed my pace and that meant at one point Lando got ahead again. You could see, it’s a different league. There’s no point trying to ruin your own race defending really hard or losing two, three laps defending for your life. Unfortunately, there’s no point in that.”
Norris went on to retire with a mechanical issue that saw Piastri extend his championship lead to 34 points, but Verstappen says his title experiences have shown him the situation can change again quickly.
“It’s out of your control. So, you just need to keep working hard, keep trying to win. It’s as simple as that. Especially when you are team-mates, you have the same car, same opportunities. It’s probably a little bit more complicated than when it’s two different teams, but still a lot of races and you can see things can swing.
“You don’t know if you get a mechanical failure or not, it’s out of your control. So yes, it’s not ideal, but there are enough races to either turn it around or not, and time will tell.”