Verstappen proud of transition from Toro Rosso

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Max Verstappen rates his ability to deal with the switch from Toro Rosso to Red Bull this season as one of his most impressive accomplishments.

The Dutch driver started his second season in F1 as a Toro Rosso driver but was promoted to Red Bull after just four races and duly won on debut for his new team in Barcelona. While it is a race Verstappen remembers fondly, he is more proud of his ability to react to the change in team and still deliver strong performances throughout the season.

"My move from Toro Rosso to Red Bull, I think," Verstappen told GPUpdate when asked for his biggest challenge this year. "You have to do well and, of course, you don't know how it is going to go… you don't know how the car is going to feel, you don't know how well you will pick everything up. It thankfully worked out well, but I had very good preparation."

And Verstappen says he didn't feel fully comfortable with the RB12 until this year's Malaysian Grand Prix, where he finished second to team-mate Ricciardo.

"At the beginning it's very difficult to say what you want to change on the car, because you have very little experience with it. At the start of my second year at Toro Rosso I knew exactly how everything worked. If the brakes, steering or throttle were modified, I knew what had been changed. All this sort of thing, which ultimately made the difference.

"In Malaysia it's true that I got the car more to my liking, and the speed was also super good. The pit-stops and Safety Cars were not good for me, but that's racing."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.