26/04/2018
NEWS STORY
Having impressed with his handshake with Lewis Hamilton a week after their encounter in Bahrain, and then apologising to Sebastian Vettel for their clash in China, Max Verstappen's journey of redemption continued in Baku today as he admitted that his actions in Shanghai were possibly the result of over zealousness.
Indeed, the youngster, who was involved in incidents with both Hamilton and Vettel during the Chinese Grand Prix - the latter causing even Jos Verstappen to publicly criticise his son - admits that he wanted victory too much.
Like his teammate, Verstappen took advantage of the safety car that followed the clash involving the Toro Rosso teammates and switched to fresh soft rubber.
However, while Daniel Ricciardo went about things his way, executing a series of bold moves and eventually taking victory, Verstappen pushed too hard and consequently made a number of mistakes including a clumsy move on Hamilton and an equally clumsy move on Vettel which cost both drivers valuable positions and resulted in damage to the German's Ferrari.
Asked if his impatience to follow his teammate through the field had got the better of him, Verstappen told reporters: "Of course, I'm not there to finish fifth with the car I had at that time. Maybe I wanted the victory too much. Maybe that cost me."
Referring to the Hamilton incident, he said: "It was a fair chance but what Lewis did I would have done the same," he admitted. "In the middle of the corner he just ran me a bit wide, I went a bit more on the marbles while being flat-out and then as soon as you have to make a correction it's easy to lose the car. But it was a fair racing moment."
Asked about his father's comments, he said: "My dad is the hardest critic of everyone in the whole world, so if I can handle him I can handle anyone. You're not perfect, nobody is perfect, you can always improve. I am very happy to listen and also improve.
"At the end of the day, I have to look at myself because I could speak to a lot of people but it has to come from me," he continued. "So I have to understand myself. But I've always been good at that and realising what went wrong. I've always been able to look at the positives from it.
"In China the start went really well, I got two cars, the pace was good, everything was going really well. So it's not a big drama what happened in China. Of course the end result was not good but you also have to look at the strengths. In general, the whole season, already the pace has been good it's just the results aren't there yet."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Baku, here.