Max in Bologna: 'Try to demand of myself to be perfect'
Published on 09 December 2022 by Mike Motilall
Max Verstappen has a very busy weekend. Friday morning he flew to Milton Keynes to visit the Oracle Red Bull Racing factory to do a sim session, in preparation of the 2023-season. After he thanked the staff for the great season, in which they achieved both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ world title, he continued on to Italy.
Accompanied by team mate Sergio Perez and team principal Christian Horner, Max flew to Bologna where the 2022 FIA Prize Giving will take place. Every trophy in the FIA-series will be given to the respective champion. Max noted: “The emotions are very different for both titles and they should be different. Your whole life you aim for one particular goal and that’s to become Formula 1-world champion. The first one is therefore very emotional.”
“This year has been very different. I do think we were more competitive this year and also more enjoyable with the way we were performing, for both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ championship. We had a lot of victories as a team. This year was better and more rewarding. But the first one will always be with more emotion.”
Max continues: “After Bahrain we knew that we had a competitive car, but it was also a little overweight. The way we bounced back in Imola after the difficult weekend we had in Australia, was just incredible. I knew that there was a lot of potential and we had a lot of ground to catch up on. Since then the car has continuously been developed in the right way and slowly the car was getting skinnier. That was good. We have had a lot of incredible weekends as a team.”
When Max is asked to choose from one of his fifteen wins in 2022, he immediately replies: “Spa. Just because of the weekend we had. From the first moment we went out on track with the car, everything was working perfectly. We barely needed to touch the car and we were miles ahead on the others.”
Last year it was the fight for the title with Lewis Hamilton, this year the most battles were with Charles Leclerc. Max responds: “Everyone is different in the way they battle in a race. But that’s the beautiful thing of our sport. Because if everyone would be the same, it would be boring. We have a lot of good drivers and that’s why we have to appreciate the enormous amount of talent we have in the world and also especially in Formula 1.”
Finally Max replies to the question in which area he improved himself as a driver: “I think as a driver you learn from every single year. You get more experienced and look at what you can do better. You know when you want to fight for the title you need to score points. Basically every race, and as much as you can. That’s why those DNF’s were so tough at the beginning of the year. I knew from that point onwards I could not afford any mistake from my side in case we would have a retirement for whatever reason. You always try to be as clean as you can be, and try to be as perfect as you can every single weekend. And that’s what I try to demand of myself when I jump into the car.”
Saturday morning the Red Bull Racing-drivers are expected back again in Milton Keynes, where the team has organized the “Home Run”. An event with spectacular car- and motorbike demo runs. This includes also Max and Checo in Red Bull RB7-cars, celebrating both championships. The Milton Keynes Home Run can be watched on Red Bull Racing livestream from 13.15 hrs. onwards and also live on Viaplay: https://viaplay.com/sport/motorsport/formule-1/milton-keynes-home-run/s22120599185699981
