Max Verstappen has said he was “shocked” to finish second at the Hungarian Grand Prix after a weekend-long battle with the handling of his Red Bull.
The four-time champion started fourth on the grid but managed to secure third place early in the race and hold off the threat of Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari after the first round of pit stops with a remarkable overtake on lap 16.
He lost the position again to Hamilton during the second round of pit stops, but gained two places back when Oscar Piastri retired from the race with a gearbox problem and Hamilton made a stop under the resulting Virtual Safety Car.
“I was just like, ‘How the hell did I end up here?’ Verstappen said after the race. “I was shocked. I’m actually still shocked.”
The result followed a difficult weekend for Verstappen, which included a spin at the final corner on his final lap in qualifying.
“Mate, the car is just completely broken,” he told his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over team radio after the spin. “Aerodynamically, it’s just getting worse and worse. What a joke. Honestly, what a s----- weekend.”
Verstappen said the car was no better on Sunday, but events during the race worked in his favour to allow him to claim second place.
“Yeah, I was still struggling with the same things as yesterday, so the car was just extremely oversteery, just degging quite hard at one point as well,” he said. “But I do think that, you know, at the start, moving forward was, of course, making our first stint possible.
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“Then, of course, we got undercut, but then I made the move on Lewis, which I think made my second stint a little bit more straightforward.
“Then the team also put me onto the soft tyres, which initially I was like, ‘that’s going to be a long run to the end,’ but we made it work. So, yeah, overall, I still don’t really understand how we are second, but I think as a team we performed strongly.
“I see it as a bit of an overperformance compared to what we expected, so I guess that’s, of course, a good thing considering how everything felt. I also saw, when I jumped out of the car again, there was damage on the car for whatever reason.
“So, yeah, it was not made easy for us.”
