The first Sprint of the year is consigned to the archives with the victory of Max Verstappen. The Dutchman finishes ahead of Charles Leclerc and will start tomorrow in first position.
A desired and hard-earned victory by the Dutchman, who had excellent tire management: “It wasn't a good start. It took time to put pressure up front. But we managed the tires better. I managed to enter the DRS zone – said the world champion – and we had a good fight the two of us. I pushed, I was fast. There was too much wheeling at the start. I do not know why. Charles had more pace, but then he ran out of tires and we managed to get close to him. I tried overtaking in turn 2. I know tomorrow will be different again, but today we managed to go better on these compounds. I'm very happy to have had a clean sprint race".
Happiness obviously isn't lacking, as is attention for tomorrow's race: “If I start like today I will certainly have to be careful. But we'll see. I'm happy for today. Tomorrow there will be harder compounds coming into play, but today was a good day."
STATEMENT SOURCE: FormulaPassion
