Max Verstappen put in a valiant effort at the Australian Grand Prix, emerging from a tempest of rain and chaos with a hard-fought second place – and no regrets.
The Red Bull ace, trailing McLaren’s Lando Norris across the line, insisted he and his team squeezed every ounce of potential from a race defined by wild weather swings.
Backing Red Bull’s bold strategy calls, Verstappen stood firm: victory was out of reach, but second was a triumph in itself.
A Calculated Gamble
Verstappen’s day teetered on the edge of brilliance and frustration. He briefly snatched the lead when Norris pitted early during a late-race shower, swapping slicks for intermediates.
Red Bull then rolled the dice, keeping Verstappen out a lap longer – a gamble that didn’t pay off with the win but kept the race alive.
Team principal Christian Horner radioed post-race that even an earlier stop wouldn’t have clinched track position. “Even if we’d stopped a lap earlier on those slicks we still wouldn’t have got track position so it was worth a gamble,” Horner said.
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Verstappen agreed, praising the call to diverge from McLaren’s playbook.
“We tried something else, it was about to work out, but I can’t see the radar, of course, of how the weather is moving in,” the reigning world champion told the official F1 channel.
“But even if we would have pitted with them a lap later or the lap that I pitted, it would have always been P2 anyway. So it didn’t really matter, but it was fun to try and do something different.”
The strategy wasn’t flawless – Verstappen rejoined behind Norris after his own stop – but he saw no missed opportunity. Red Bull’s willingness to zig when others zagged injected excitement into a day where McLaren was out of reach.
From Flying Start to Slippery Struggle
Verstappen’s race ignited at the green light. He pounced on Oscar Piastri’s McLaren at the start, leaping from third to second in a flash.
“The start was fun,” he said with a grin. But the joy faded as the first rain hit. A wide moment at Turn 11 saw him lose the spot to Piastri, dropping 10 seconds behind the McLaren duo as his tyres overheated.
“After that, I think I tried to stay with the McLarens but like basically every other team we just degged [referring to tyre degradation] too hard and we overheated our tyres and then the McLarens just take off,” he explained.
“I gave it my all, but then of course at one point, they really just took off and I tried to just focus on my own race.”
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The weather’s encore – drenching the track just as slicks were in play – tested his resolve.
“But then, of course, the weather just started to play up again and it was very difficult out there with the slicks when it started to rain,” he said.
Yet Verstappen adapted, clawing back to second as others faltered.
Eyes on the Prize, Feet on the Ground
Second place wasn’t the crown, but Verstappen saw it as a victory of circumstance. McLaren’s dry-weather dominance, led by Norris, left little room for doubt – they are the team to beat.
“The gap is big, I know that,” he admitted. “That is not going to disappear from here to the next race. But we have to try and stay close.
“Also, on days like today, normally you are P3, we are P2, so that’s good.”
For Verstappen, snagging second in a race primed for third was a silver lining in Melbourne’s stormy skies.
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