Verstappen took his sixth win in nine races, strengthening his grip on the championship lead, which rose to 46 points over team-mate Sergio Perez and 49 points over Ferrari challenger Charles Leclerc.
While Verstappen’s weekend in Canada was boosted by Leclerc’s grid penalty, which put the Ferrari driver out of action, the Dutchman still had his work cut out to overcome Carlos Sainz’s second Ferrari, which harassed him for the last 20 laps.
Sainz seemed to enjoy a small pace advantage over Verstappen, but couldn’t find a way past the world champion clear.
MORE: Why ‘faster’ Ferrari couldn’t beat Red Bull at Canadian GP
Despite their winning streak and comfortable championship position, Verstappen warned his Red Bull side “need to improve” after discovering they were “not the fastest” on Sunday.
“It’s still very long and I know that the gap is of course quite big, but I also know that it can change very quickly,” he said when asked about his substantial lead in the standings. .
“I mean, in the third race I was 46 behind, so we just have to stay calm, we have to focus, we have to improve, because today [Sunday] we are not the fastest.
“It swings a little, like last weekend [at Baku] it looked good in the race, now it doesn’t look as good but we still managed to win and i think that’s also a quality and we just have to work with the whole team to try to find small improvements in the car. “
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari, 2nd position, congratulate each other at the Parc Fermé
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Ferrari have often been the quickest team in qualifying, with Leclerc taking six poles against Verstappen’s two and Perez’s, as they struggled more to match the Milton Keynes-based team over a distance. full race due to tire graining issues and a relative. lack of top speed compared to the Red Bulls.
But Verstappen, while he thought the reasons for Ferrari’s advantage on Sunday were hard to pin down, he said it was nothing new as the form between the two title contenders “moves back and forth” from one race to another.
“I don’t think they were always faster on Saturday and slower on Sunday. I think at Barcelona they were as fast on Sunday and there were a few more races,” he said. declared.
“So it comes and goes a bit. We have to understand of course… it also rained yesterday [Saturday]. Maybe that didn’t help us today [Sunday] with the greenest track. But that’s all we need to consider.
“Maybe the layout of the track, the curbs, whatever, we’ll take a look at it, but at the moment it’s difficult to really explain why they were a little bit faster than us in the race.
