You’ve retaken the championship lead after driving a faultless weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix in front of your passionate home fans. How good does it feel?
I couldn’t have asked for more in Zandvoort but now it’s all eyes on Monza. The Italian Grand Prix is only around the corner and it’s very tight in the championship so the celebrations can wait and some rest between the race weekends will be important.
A sea of orange fans were singing your name all weekend. Did you feel the pressure to perform, especially in the race on Sunday with both Mercedes behind you?
People always think there is more pressure for drivers at their home Grand Prix but for me it’s more enjoyable. You don’t sit in your car thinking you have to deliver because you have to deliver all the time in F1 anyway so it’s no different. From my side it doesn’t really change anything in terms of pressure if it’s your home race or not. Of course everyone does expect a lot from you at a home race so it’s nice to be able to deliver and especially to win in front of the Royal Family, but it was a brilliant performance from the whole Team. Strategically we were very sharp but I’m aware that not every weekend will be like Zandvoort so we have to keep working as a Team and keep pushing as there are still a lot of races to go.
Historically the Monza circuit hasn’t always favoured us. What are your thoughts going into the weekend?
I expect Monza to suit Mercedes as it hasn’t been our best track for the last few years but this year we are more competitive so you never know. If we continue what we have been doing, working well together as a Team, and nail every little detail then we can be competitive but Mercedes might have a top speed advantage on us. The track looks easy on paper but it’s actually quite difficult to nail a lap there because with a low downforce set up and the long braking zone the car is moving around quite a lot. It’s a bumpy track with quite old tarmac and the fans there are really passionate about racing and Formula One. Naturally there is always a lot of Ferrari support there but the fans just love F1 and it’s great to see that energy with the Italians.
We’re second in the constructors standings. Who do you see having the advantage at this stage of the championship?
I don’t think either us or Mercedes have a big advantage over the other. At Zandvoort you could see in qualifying and the race that both of our cars are super close and Lewis was applying pressure for the entire race which meant we couldn’t afford to make any mistakes on the track, in the pit lane or on the pit wall, and we didn’t. I think it’s the finer details where you can make a difference. When you enter a race weekend you have to work hard as a Team on the set-up and fine tuning the little details, that’s where the gains can be made.
- Despite being slowest of everyone in the speed trap, Max was on pole position at the Dutch Grand Prix. We have also achieved this at Monza, when Sebastian was on pole at the 2011 Italian Grand Prix despite being slowest in the speed trap.
- Max became the 19th driver in Formula One history to lead 1,000 laps in their career.
- The Dutch Grand Prix was Max’s 100th points finish – only 16 other drivers have achieved this in F1 history.
- There have been a total of eight race leaders in the 2021 Formula One season: Max has led 485 laps across 11 races, Lewis has led 128 over 8, Esteban 65 over 1, Charles 50 over 2, Valtteri 27 over 2, Checo 26 over 3, Sebastian 4 over 1 and Fernando 2 over 1.
- If drivers were awarded points for the top ten pitstops at each race then Max and Checo would now be 1-2 in the “Pitstop World Championship”.
- Monza Park is the fourth-largest enclosed park in Europe, covering 6.88 square kilometres. It is over three times larger than the principality of Monaco.
- Red Bull’s first podium finish as a title sponsor came at Monza in 1995, when Heinz-Harald Frentzen finished third in a Red Bull Sauber – the year before Red Bull went on sale in Italy.
