Max Verstappen posed a greater threat to McLaren in the Spanish Grand Prix than the team foresaw, said race winner Oscar Piastri.
Red Bull put Verstappen on a three-stop strategy in an attempt to put pressure on the McLaren drivers in the race. Although he wasn’t able to jump ahead of either McLaren, Piastri admitted he got closer than they thought he would.
“I wasn’t really expecting Max to try a three-stop race, and I wasn’t really expecting it to almost-work as well as it did either,” said Piastri.
Verstappen’s final pit stop brought him onto the tail of Norris as the drivers were lapping slower cars. “There was a bit going on at that point, definitely, just with all the traffic and the blue flags as well, that made the race a bit more interesting than I wanted,” said Piastri.
“But, apart from a few laps trying to get through the blue flags, I felt pretty much in control and could increase my pace when I needed to. So it was a really strong race and a strong weekend.
“We did a really good job of managing everything in that race: sticking to our plan on strategy, not getting distracted by the three-stop, really good pit stops. I think we just did a good job all around.”
Verstappen fell to 10th place in the final classification after being penalised for colliding with George Russell. Piastri scored his fifth victory of the season and the seventh of his career. He now leads the championship by 10 points from Norris and 49 from Verstappen.
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Having been disappointed with third place in Monaco, Piastri said this was clearly one of his best performances.
“It’s pretty hard to complain with the results we’ve had this weekend. I think more than that, just the effort that’s gone in, analysing some of the things from last week that we could have done better, I think we turned it around very nicely and got back to the form we wanted to be on.
“That’s what I’m very satisfied with this weekend. Definitely one of the strongest.”
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