Max Verstappen goes pole-to-win at his home GP, wins 10th race of the season

Today was quite eventful and not a straightforward race at all, we had to make the right calls and it all worked out well in the end. Mercedes were very quick on the harder compound which we didn’t expect, so it made it more difficult for us as we were less compatible with the hards. We managed everything quite well and we made the right calls on the strategy so well done to the Team here and back at the factory. It’s always special to win your home grand prix but this year I had to work even harder for it. It’s incredible to win again in front of this crowd, we’ve had unbelievable support here and I’m proud to be Dutch.

Obviously this is a great day for the Team but it wasn’t the best day at the office for me. I struggled with tyre degradation in the first and second stints and I never quite got the balance where I wanted it to be.  It was a hectic race with incidents in the pit lane but I was lucky that my front wing wasn’t damaged when I drove over the wheel gun. Despite the difficulty I had, we managed to save some good points. There’s lots to take away from today and plenty to understand from our side so that we can come back strong in Monza.

Finishing P11 is never a great feeling, we tried our best to make it into the points, but I don’t think we quite had the pace to make it possible today. Ultimately, we’re lacking a little bit of performance compared to the other cars around us, we lost some time in the first stint and struggled on the Mediums in traffic. I think there are still some positives to take away from this weekend though, we knew this was going to be a track we would struggle on but the pace on the Hards this afternoon looked competitive. We’re now heading to Monza for the last of the European races, where I hope we’ll be able to come back stronger.

It’s been a disappointing day, as heading into the race our pace looked quite good and we were hoping to finish in the points. We dropped back a few places at the start of the race but were slowly making our way forward again and were positive we could finish in the top 10. Unfortunately, after I stopped for the Hards, I felt there was an issue with the car, the team could not see anything at that stage so they called me in to change the tyres. However, when I went back out I could still feel there was something wrong, which the team then confirmed by radio and we had to retire the car.