Verstappen had a feeling even before the start: what immediately struck him in Brazil

From P21 to P2: Max Verstappen exceeded even Red Bull’s expectations in Brazil – team principal Laurent Mekies explains why nobody saw this coming

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen had a feeling even before the start of the São Paulo Grand Prix that he would have a good race. But not even his own team expected him to race from the back of the grid all the way onto the podium.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said: “No simulation in the world will predict that you’ll go from P21 to P2 or make up 14 places in five laps. But Max regularly beats the simulations.”

That’s exactly what happened in Brazil. Yet Verstappen himself had a good feeling: “After the formation lap, I was quite confident. I pulled out and thought: ‘Oh, not much grip.’ But then I actually had a few cars around me and thought: ‘No, I reckon we’ve actually got quite a lot of grip.’”

In fact, Verstappen made up ground right from the very first metres: he gained position after position. “Our balance was spot on. That showed in the first few laps,” he said in retrospect. “The car worked well, at least in the first stint. That enabled me to get into this position.”

How Verstappen drew on his experience

His experience in wet conditions in São Paulo did the rest, particularly when it came to knowing “when it’s better not to take too many risks”, according to Verstappen. “That helped me too, because with the car it was definitely not an easy race for me. But we still managed to secure a good result: we wanted to score points, and we picked up a decent haul of them.”

As has so often been the case in the past: in eleven races at São Paulo to date, Verstappen has three wins and a total of eight podium finishes to his name. He has scored World Championship points in all eleven Grands Prix, starting from the front row on three occasions.

“This circuit has always suited me well,” said Verstappen. “Actually, I’ve enjoyed coming here ever since I started racing here. And sometimes it just clicks more naturally on some circuits than on others. But next time, let’s try to start a bit further up the grid, please. That would be brilliant!”

Power unit problem: Why Verstappen had to start from the back

However, Verstappen hadn’t brought this poor starting position upon himself: According to Mekies, an unspecified “problem” with the power unit had already forced Red Bull to replace various components on Verstappen’s car on Friday. This resulted in a grid penalty.

For Mekies and Red Bull, this was “naturally frustrating”, as the team principal admitted. “But that’s part of the job. It’s easy to forget that this is the first year with this power unit. And the lads have done an exceptional job. This weekend we received our first penalty with Max, and that’s just the way it is.”

What Red Bull takes away from the Brazilian Grand Prix

Verstappen is trying to take a positive view of the last-minute power unit change and the ultimately good race result, with two Red Bull cars finishing in the top three: “Hopefully this will put us in a good position for a strong end to the season, during which we can still learn a lot about the car that we’ll need to implement for next year.”