Verstappen doubts victory was possible despite historic close finish

Max Verstappen doubts a stronger qualifying result would have given him a better shot at beating George Russell to victory despite falling short by just 0.196s.

Engine trouble and yellow flags in qualifying left Verstappen eighth on the grid, and though it took him only seven laps to recover to third — albeit with help from a team order to move past teammate Isack Hadjar — he ended up stuck behind Oscar Piastri for the entire opening stint.

It took until the first safety car restart on lap 36 of 51 for Verstappen to jump Piastri, though a second safety car immediately afterwards meant he got only 12 laps to pressure Russell before the checkered flag flew.

Verstappen said on Friday night that he believed a front-row start should have been within his grasp with a cleaner qualifying performance, but on Saturday he said he was skeptical that a better grid slot would have changed his race result.

“I think even if I started second, I think the pace of George, it would have been very hard to pass,” he said.

“Maybe I could have followed him a bit better in that first stint. Then you box, you’re second — behind — and then probably we would have done the same race, just pushing each other along.

“It would have for sure made my first stint a bit easier instead of overtaking all the cars that I had to.

“For sure the soft tire was much better than the medium, because I just had the first few laps in the first stint were very strong, but then the tires were just not working and it was quite a bit of just surviving in the first stint, trying to go as long as possible.

“The safety car actually came at the right time to swap to the soft tires, and then I have to say that those last laps were very enjoyable, because there was barely any deg, really.

“We were just pushing to the end, and the gap was always 1s, 1.1s, so that was nice.”

Russell’s 0.196s victory is the 10th narrowest in Formula 1 history under green flag conditions, and it was the closest since Rubens Barrichello defeated Michael Schumacher by 0.011s at the 2002 United States Grand Prix — though the tightness of that result was orchestrated by Schumacher attempting to engineer a dead heat.

The previous closest was earlier that year, when Barrichello acquiesced to team orders to let Schumacher win the Austrian Grand Prix on the final lap.

Prior to that was the 2000 Canadian Grand Prix, which Schumacher beat Barrichello by 0.174s

“It looked close on the line, but I think that was more because I think George suffered from a little bit of boost lag in [Turn] 15 with the yellow flag,” Verstappen said.

“If you look at the last stint, it was always 1s, so that’s probably also where we would have finished.”

Verstappen was backed up by teammate Isack Hadjar, who finished third to complete Red Bull Racing’s first double podium since the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix.

“This is what the team wants, to have the two cars on the podium when possible, so maximizing the result, and I think we did that today,” Verstappen said. “It’s working really well with Isack in the team, and we just need to keep that going.”