‘I always feel unbeatable’ – Verstappen’s bullish warning to Perez
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After a rare error in qualifying left Verstappen ninth on the grid, the two-time world champion made light work of carving his way through the field.Is Max Verstappen a HYPOCRITE? | F1 2023Video of Is Max Verstappen a HYPOCRITE? | F1 2023 Verstappen hunted down Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, who started from pole position, and passed the Mexican with nine laps to go to take his third win of the season. The result saw Verstappen extend his championship lead to 14 points over Perez. Asked if he feels unbeatable, the Dutchman told Sky: “I always feel unbeatable. “But sometimes other people also have a really good day and they can be close to you, or match you and be ahead. “But I think what is important is to try to be close to 100 percent or perfect every single time. Yesterday wasn’t perfect, so overall this weekend wasn’t perfect.“It’s a long season and I always try to be as close as possible to perfect.”
Verstappen impressively made an off-set tyre strategy work as he ran a long first stint on hard tyres and made his pitstop 25 laps after Perez. Such was Verstappen’s relentless pace, he rejoined just over a second behind Perez after coming in for fresh medium rubber. After sweeping past Perez at the first corner, Verstappen was able to pull a five-second gap to his teammate by the chequered flag to underline his superiority. “It was better than expected I guess,” he explained. “It was really just about trying to understand how the tyres would last in the middle of the stint, I was not sure, that’s probably why I was a bit slower than I could have been. Related Russell downplays Mercedes’ Imola upgrade: “Not going to transform things” Horner teases Mercedes and Ferrari: “Where are the others?”“But that also made me a bit faster at the end, that’s where I could extend my gap again and that’s what made my race, because when we made the pit stop I was only 1-1.5 seconds behind and with the fresher compound, of course you can pass.”
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