Max after winning at Spa-Francorchamps: 'Not expected, it was really enjoyable'

Published on 28 August 2022 by Mike Motilall

An impressive catch-up race, starting from fourteenth on the grid and leading to a grand victory on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, which will also retain its presence on the 2023 Formula 1-calendar. “If you look at the whole weekend, I think this was my most dominant weekend in my whole career ever”, says Max. “If you look at the whole weekend, the car has been incredible from FP1. I don’t think we expected it to be like this. But sometimes it’s nice when things positively surprise you. It’s been really enjoyable to drive the car around here this year. Our car is just very efficient and this track suits it very perfectly.”

“We knew we had our difficulties for the race when you start P14. But we stayed out of trouble on lap 1, which wasn’t easy. It was very hectic in front of me. The first lap, I knew with the car we had, you don’t want to risk too much then it’s harder to stay out of trouble. But once everything calmed down with the SC around me, I was literally overtaking one car every lap. Once I was back in P3 and I saw that my tyres were holding up quite nicely on the soft compound, I knew there was a good possibility we could win the race.” But up until then, Max didn’t dare to dream of winning in Belgium. The Dutchman says: “It wasn’t on my mind yesterday. I just wanted to drive a good race.”

Max was born and bred in Belgium and also has a Belgian mother. Spa-Francorchamps is his favourite track, a place where thousands of fans come to cheer him on. Max: “It’s always nice to win. It’s even nicer to win like we were able to show today. And it’s even better on a circuit like Spa, which is my favourite track  I grew up not so far from here and it’s also nice to be here and see the Orange Army. I am very happy after this weekend.”