Red Bull’s Max Verstappen believes that he “maximised” his second-placed finish at the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix.
Verstappen was fought off by eventual race winner, George Russell in the opening seven laps so attempted the undercut by pitting early on laps 13 and 38, which didn’t pay off as the Brit kept him at bay despite late-race traffic before a safety car finish after McLaren’s Lando Norris crashed out on lap 67.
The result meant that Verstappen cut his title deficit to Oscar Piastri down to 43 points after the Aussie finished fourth, although he is now 21 points off second-placed Norris who had slipped 22 points off his teammate due to his retirement.
Verstappen post-race spoke of his belief that he had “maximised” his race result with a defensive drive with high tyre degradation.
“We drove quite a defensive race today and it was quite tough out there. The tyre degradation was quite high and in the first two stints we were going through the tyres quite quickly.
“We were quite aggressive with our strategy to stay ahead and during the last pit stop I thought it might be difficult to make it to the end. The last stint helped us a bit with the lighter fuel load and we were a bit more kind on the tyres which was positive.
“If you look at the whole race this was the maximum result possible.”
Verstappen however admitted that he didn’t think that he had the pace or tyre wear to take victory but has vowed to take heart from the “positives from the weekend”, which saw him outqualify both Piastri and Norris.
“We didn’t really have the pace to fight upfront and had a bit too much degradation to be in the fight for the win, so I’m happy to be P2. The gap wasn’t big to George but didn’t think I had the pace to fight for the win.
“There are lots of positives from the weekend: as a Team we did the best performance possible, got it right and our car was in a decent window. Looking to the next race we have a bit of work to do with our tyre management and the degradation but lots of positives to take forward.”