Max Verstappen gave up on Turkey F1 win after pit stop
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Verstappen maintained second behind Bottas at the start of the race, settling a couple of seconds behind him.The Dutchman dropped to over six seconds behind Bottas before switching to fresh intermediates on Lap 37.”ad_Mercedes responded with Bottas a lap later to cover off the threat of the undercut.With Bottas extending his advantage, Verstappen settled for second in Turkey – a result that saw him reclaim the lead of the drivers’ championship.“No, I could already see after a bit in the first stint that he was too quick, Verstappen told Sky Sports F1. “I did close the gap a little bit at one point but he pulled away again.Related Five winners and five losers from F1’s Turkish Grand Prix Mercedes ‘certain’ Hamilton would have lost places without late F1 pit stop“My tyres were gone, I just tried to hang on. Even Charles [Leclerc] behind was quite quick and once I pitted I basically just drove it to the end as I knew I didn’t have the pace so it was just having the tyres in a better shape towards the end so you don’t hit trouble.”Verstappen complained of a gearshift-related issue during the race, however, he confirmed that it didn’t impact his performance at Istanbul Park.Related Vettel “disappointed” with “wrong call” to slicks in F1’s Turkish How the Mercedes F1 pit call that angered Hamilton played out“I didn’t have gear shift problems, I just had a message next to my number of what gear I would be – after one setting [change] it was gone and it was not limiting the performance,” Verstappen added. “It was just about managing your pace to make the tyre last to the end because I tried to do that as good as I could. It seemed like Mercedes still did a better job at that, especially Valtteri today.“I tried to follow him around a bit but still, they had a bit more pace in hand and they were looking after their tyres a bit better than us. Overall on a weekend where we were off the pace compared to them, to come away with second here and third with Checo, as a team, was a great result.”
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