Verstappen doesn't understand how he finished second in Hungarian GP after car struggles

Max Verstappen says the limitations he felt with his Red Bull makes it difficult to understand how he ended up finishing second in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Lando Norris gave McLaren its first race of the season, while Verstappen was able to manage a long final stint on soft tires to beat Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton to second place. Verstappen did not stop under the Virtual Safety Car in order to gain track position, but felt he was fighting his car for a lot of the race after having been sixth-fastest on Saturday.

“I was still struggling with the same things as [in qualifying], so the car was just extremely oversteery, just degrading quite hard at one point as well,” Verstappen said. “But I do think that at the start, moving forward was making our first stint possible. 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 softs, which initially I was like, ‘that’s going to be a long run to the end,’ but we made it work. So, 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 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, it was not made easy for us.”

Verstappen felt the Red Bull was no better in race trim than it had been in qualifying, and says it was one of his most challenging races despite the result.

“[The car] was exactly the same [as Saturday]” he said. “There’s nothing that you can change after qualifying, so I knew that it was going to be tough, and it was very tough. Honestly, I think it was one of the hardest races of this year in terms of how I felt in the car, how I had to manage the balance as well, corner to corner. So, to be on the podium, I think, was an incredible result for us.”

One highlight, however, was Verstappen overtaking Hamilton into Turn 1 in a crucial move, as he extended a pass on Liam Lawson to get alongside the Ferrari on the brakes.

“I knew that that was my only opportunity as well, because they were not too bad in terms of pace” Verstappen said. “So, when I saw the opportunity arise, I went for it and, yeah, it was a good move.”