I'm not a fan of Max at all, infact I strongly dislike him, his attitude in the car when something remotely isn't quite right , and the way he defensively drives and I'll support almost anyone on the grid over him, however credit where credit is due that was a very impressive drive.
I did find it interesting that earlier in the race he got stuck behind Leclerc for a good number of laps despite being massively faster catching him up. The same happened to Norris and others at various points. There was of course no DRS (rightly so at the time) but it should have been enabled in the last 15 laps as it was more than dry enough and offline was then ok too. The way he built the gap to 19 seconds by the end.. was nuts.
As well as Verstappen did, what happened to McLaren's pace from Quali and from the sprint race? Piastri was nowhere and Lando go stuck behind Russell for ages and couldn't get pass Leclerc or the Alpines. Apparently they made some changes to the rear wing due to the weather, was that the main reason and that screwed their race?
Red flag and pit stop was entirely predictable that Max was going to stay out and somehow get lucky, I literally said it the second Russell and Norris pitted. It is luck... and it's also not fair. But then again the same is probably true of the red flag in quali. As Brundle likes to say, things probably even out over a season.
Other things:
Once again shows Stroll shouldn't be anywhere near an F1 seat.
Bearman had a very tough race, but had never driven an F1 car in the wet before so you have to forget that one.
Rain makes for a more interesting race.
I did find it interesting that earlier in the race he got stuck behind Leclerc for a good number of laps despite being massively faster catching him up. The same happened to Norris and others at various points. There was of course no DRS (rightly so at the time) but it should have been enabled in the last 15 laps as it was more than dry enough and offline was then ok too. The way he built the gap to 19 seconds by the end.. was nuts.
As well as Verstappen did, what happened to McLaren's pace from Quali and from the sprint race? Piastri was nowhere and Lando go stuck behind Russell for ages and couldn't get pass Leclerc or the Alpines. Apparently they made some changes to the rear wing due to the weather, was that the main reason and that screwed their race?
Red flag and pit stop was entirely predictable that Max was going to stay out and somehow get lucky, I literally said it the second Russell and Norris pitted. It is luck... and it's also not fair. But then again the same is probably true of the red flag in quali. As Brundle likes to say, things probably even out over a season.
Other things:
Once again shows Stroll shouldn't be anywhere near an F1 seat.
Bearman had a very tough race, but had never driven an F1 car in the wet before so you have to forget that one.
Rain makes for a more interesting race.