Max Verstappen says just four races ago, after winning the United States Grand Prix, he called anyone “stupid” who expected him to still be in title contention at this stage of the season.
Verstappen started his first race after the summer break in Zandvoort, 104 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri, with just two podium finishes in the past eight races. In his last four races, Verstappen has firmly returned to contention, winning three times in Singapore and finishing second behind George Russell, closing the gap to 40 points.
Asked whether anyone would have predicted such a rapid turnaround, Verstappen said: “No, I would have said he was an idiot.” “We found a good way to do the car, it’s very simple. Of course we made some upgrades to the car, but we understood our car a little bit better in the areas where we wanted it to perform better.”
“Every weekend we try to achieve that. Some weekends are better than others, but in general the last few weeks have been much easier compared to before the race. That’s what we have to try and take from there every weekend now.”
In Austin, Verstappen won both the sprint and grand prix races from pole position, taking 23 points from Piastri’s lead, but the Dutchman says he needs to be clean in the remaining five races to win the title.
“It was an unbelievable weekend for us,” he said. “Of course I knew the race wasn’t going to be that simple. If you look at the race as a whole, I think the pace between me and Lando (Norris) was very close.”
“In the first stint, that’s where we made the difference. We were able to hold off a little bit of a gap and that’s basically what we kept until the end. It wasn’t easy to manage the tires in both stints, but we kept the lead and we’re all incredibly proud of having such a weekend.”
“The opportunity is there. We just have to try right now to deliver a weekend like this until the end…try as much as we can. I’m very excited to the end.”
“We need to be perfect until the end to have a chance. We’ve caught up quite a bit, but at the same time the gap is very small. I think we need to aim for perfection every weekend, and that’s what we’re going to strive for until the end.”