‘They’ve Been Slow All Year” – Max Verstappen Rubs Salt to Mercedes’ Wound Amidst the Lewis Hamilton Lapping Moment at Imola

The latest race in Imola offered the viewers a couple of hefty surprises and of course, one of them is the unfortunate Charles Leclerc incident which thwarted the Monegasque from ending Ferrari’s 16-year podium drought at Emilia Romagna. But, the other surprise was certainly something not many anticipated would occur through even the course of this season – Max Verstappen lapping Lewis Hamilton.

During the latter part of the race, there was something rather unusual taking place on the track; A Red Bull was right behind a Mercedes. Deja Vu? Not at all! Because only in this case, it wasn’t a battle for the position but rather Verstappen setting himself up to lap his former title rival, Hamilton.

Hence, it almost seemed as if Verstappen savored every bit of it as he made the free pass on Hamilton before proceeding to win his second race of the season. However, turns out, that wasn’t the case after all. During an interview with Sky Sports F1, the interviewer questioned Verstappen, “Was it a nice moment passing the Mercedes while lapping?”

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The Dutchman immediately denied it and reckoned the moment featuring Hamilton was far from exciting. “They’ve been slow all year. So, for me, it’s not really anything exciting, you know? It just happens,” Verstappen said.

Max Verstappen hails Red Bull F1 recovery since Australia

Red Bull hit a new low in Australia with Verstappen as he was forced to retire from the race after looking to set to finish P2. However, it has been a blinding resurgence since then as the Dutchman, this time around, went on to embrace a dominant race in Imola.

Hence, Verstappen affirmed that the team made a huge step forward, not only in terms of reliability but also in strategy and other crucial set-up tweaks.

“We just had to learn from our reliability trouble and I think we did as a team. I think, throughout the whole weekend, we made the right calls and we were on top of everything except yesterday; The start wasn’t great,” he said.

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“But the rest… Of course, today we covered that quite well. Yeah, the whole race was executed quite well without too many troubles but, you still have to focus and it’s easy to make mistakes in these conditions. But, yeah, very pleased with the end result.”

Overall, a morale-boosting weekend comes to an end for Red Bull having clinched their first 1-2 since 2016. But, now, the biggest question is, can they keep this trend alive heading into the Miami Grand Prix next weekend?