Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsToro Rosso

Verstappen: I've been taking it easy

Max Verstappen says he has been avoiding taking risks in the opening few races of his F1 career and made the decision to step up a level in China.

In a race where overtaking was difficult due to front tyre limitations, Verstappen was often at the centre of the action as he made a number of robust moves under braking, most often in to the Turn 14 hairpin. Having fought his way up to eighth place from 13th on the grid, Verstappen was unfortunate to see his race ended prematurely by an engine problem in the closing laps but he says his performance was a sign of his true potential.

"I was really enjoying my race," Verstappen said. "We didn’t have a great qualifying, but still I was very confident that we could do a good race because I think the car and its race pace is really strong, especially high speed.

"I had some good overtakes, I was really enjoying that. It’s also every race I’m getting more and more confident in the car. Especially in the first two races you don’t want to take too many risks and I decided in China it was time to do some overtakes and take some more risks."

And Verstappen says he is looking forward to trying to rectify the late retirement by scoring points for Toro Rosso this weekend in Bahrain.

"For sure it’s very short notice for us after China, where we had the engine issues. But we will try to do our best to deliver a good race and try to score points, because I think at the moment the car is capable of it and I’m feeling much better every race in the car. So I’m really looking forward to this race."

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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.