Exclusive Max Verstappen Q&A

F1i sat down with Max Verstappen in the Singapore paddock to talk about his impressive season so far, overtaking skills, life as a Red Bull young driver and how patient he is for success

Verstappen on ... Singapore and Toro Rosso

It’s your first time in Singapore, are you excited by it? I guess you don’t really get nervous about much…

“No, not that many things. There are some things, but not in racing! Yeah, for sure I’m excited. Normally our car should perform better here again so I’m extremely motivated for that. We knew when we went to Monza that normally we didn’t have a big chance to score points, so then also your motivation is a bit less of course. You try to do your best all the time so in that perspective that doesn’t changed, but I am extra pumped to go out here, especially with the new updates which should give us a bit more performance. I’m really looking forward to this one.

“It feels a bit similar to Malaysia but then the thing is here you always have to be very focused during the driving and that was already very demanding in Monaco and there it was not hot at all. I think in general this track is even more challenging than Monaco and then the humidity makes it even more difficult. The race is around two hours long, so it makes it quite tough.”

You mentioned some new parts, have you been surprised by how strong the chassis has been this year?

“Yeah in testing for us it was a bit difficult for us to know where we are because you don’t know where people are with fuel loads and stuff, and also just before we started testing you never know what they built. I mean, the car did look very nice but it doesn’t say when a car looks very nice that it’s a fast car. Of course you hope that it is and I think it has proven it’s quite a good car for the budget we have compared to the big teams.

“So I’m really happy with that. At least we can show ourselves what we are capable of and we can run in the points. I think that’s very important because people keep writing about you if you score points or you do good stuff in the race. If you are driving at the back like Manor at the moment you can’t show yourself, even if you're the best driver out there. I’m sure there were drivers in the past who were very good and never had the chance to prove themselves. I think I’m in a lucky situation in that way.”