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Verstappen ‘very proud’ to score 'incredible' 50th F1
Seatoday.com, Jakarta Having started from sixth on the grid, Verstappen worked his way forward during the early stages of the event before taking the lead from Lando Norris at the halfway point.
It wasn’t a completely straightforward drive from there on, though, with the Dutchman being chased down by a fast Lewis Hamilton in the final laps. Verstappen managed to hold on to P1 and crossed the line two seconds ahead of the Mercedes.
When asked after stepping out of his Red Bull whether the afternoon had been a little more complicated than normal, Verstappen responded: “Of course, it started already with starting in P6. But I think the whole race I was struggling a lot with the brakes.
“Around here, there are quite a few braking points, so I couldn’t really have the same feeling as yesterday. So, that made my race a bit tougher out there today. You could see it was very close in the end, and there were also the backmarkers. When the tires are already going, it makes it a bit more difficult.”
“It was quite tough to make progress,” he reflected. “It was really difficult, especially in the beginning. I was really happy with my second stint [on] the medium [tyre], but then when I went on to the hard, I seemed to struggle a bit, and it wasn’t as good as I was hoping to have the pace. I was hoping to have a lot more pace left.”
Perez’s home race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is next up on the calendar, and he remains hopeful for what he can achieve there.
“We know we’ve taken the wrong direction for the weekend with the set-ups that we have to do, so I’m optimistic for Mexico,” he concluded.
Article and photo source : formula1.com
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