Verstappen: Everything turned out better than we expected.

      Max Verstappen won the Italian Grand Prix in a truly championship manner, although he will not be able to win the title this season. But when the car allows, he is capable of achieving more than a convincing superiority over his rivals. At the press conference after the finish he did, however, suggest that the McLaren drivers were not attacking at full strength because they were hoping for the safety car to appear.

      Question: Max, congratulations! Today it was impossible to beat you, and although all the cars are roughly equal in speed potential, you managed to win by 19 seconds. Does this victory taste sweet?

      Max Verstappen: I would say things went a little better than we expected, but as soon as I got back into first place I just tried to focus on my pace, and after that things went well. Probably only towards the end of the first stint, maybe in the last six or eight laps on the Mediums, things started to get difficult.

      But until that point everything was fine. It turned out the car was capable of a higher pace, and I liked that. It seems that this weekend we managed to take another step forward in improving the RB21's behaviour, and that also showed itself during the race.

      That's a positive and very important point. Also, of course, we followed a more familiar tactical scheme, starting on the Mediums and then switching to the hards. McLaren decided to stay out longer hoping they'd get lucky with a safety car, and I think that's why my advantage is a bit bigger than it might have been. But we still had an incredibly successful weekend.

      Question: Speaking about your car's performance, can you single out any particular characteristic?

      Max Verstappen: You see, before it felt like I was in the passenger seat. There were races where the car was clearly not well balanced. Now finally the balance is right and the tyres worked better than usual.

      Question: After the first few laps the race settled down, but can you tell us about your fight with Lando Norris after the start? It was interesting to watch you from the side!

      Max Verstappen: I had fun too. There was a lot going on on the first lap, but the fierce battle started right away, already from turn 1. It seems Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc had a duel there as well—I saw that in the mirror. In general, things only calmed a bit after two or three laps, and after that everything went great.

      Question: When you made the decisive move and moved into the lead, how confident were you that you could pull away from Lando?

      Max Verstappen: You can't predict that. Of course I mean you push quite hard to try to create a gap, but whether it will work out you only find out later. But after the first few laps it looked like everything was going well.

      Question: You've mentioned several times this weekend that the team has made obvious improvements compared to last year's Italian Grand Prix. How much does that give you hope for the remaining races of the season?

      Max Verstappen: I think our car's effectiveness still depends on the characteristics of a particular track. At Monza we set the aero up for low downforce. It seems the RB21 is more competitive with low or medium downforce settings. So you can't say we've suddenly made a huge leap. And that doesn't mean we'll be able to fight for top results successfully every weekend.

      But we now better understand what needs to be done for the car to gain competitiveness, and that's encouraging. So on some tracks we'll be able to perform better than on others, I hope.

      Question: Both Helmut Marko and Pierre Waché said that this weekend the team tried to listen more to the drivers and pay less attention to simulator calculations. How much did that work, and how important was the influence of Laurent Mekies with his engineering experience?

      Max Verstappen: You could say that previously in setup work we acted unsystematically, I would compare it to shooting randomly in all directions. We made fairly radical setup changes, which is a sign that we weren't controlling the situation, we didn't understand what needed to be done.

      Since Laurent has huge engineering experience, he asks the right questions of our specialists, guided simply by common sense. I think that alone gives a good effect. In addition, because we know what we tried to do earlier, at some point from the results of that work an understanding begins to form about which direction to move in.

      That's the direction we're continuing to work in; for example, already in Zandvoort I realized we were starting to get something right, and in Monza we took the next step. It seems that allowed us to achieve further improvements.

      Question: If you were in Lando's and Oscar's place and fighting for the title, how would you act?

      Max Verstappen: I understand you want a funny answer, but that's not my problem, so it's better not to touch that topic.

      Question: Near the end of the race the team asked you to be more cautious to get to the finish safely. You replied that you wouldn't take risks but would continue to attack at full power. But did you have any speed reserves left?

      Max Verstappen: That was more of a joke. The thing is, the engineer who works with the simulator in my Team Redline always says that, sometimes the stress really gets to him. And when I compete in races, my mindset is always: "Okay, no need to take risks, but we'll attack at full power." That's why I said it.

      Everything was under control, the car made a good impression, the tyres were working effectively. Of course my engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, always wants to be sure I'm driving without any risk—and that's what I did.

      Question: At the beginning of the weekend you joked that if you heard the song dedicated to you again sung by the fans you'd experience signs of post-traumatic stress. Since it was played during the podium ceremony, can it be said this podium will be even more memorable for you?

      Max Verstappen: I think the same happened in Imola—it's nice to see such support! Of course, most of the Italian crowd cheers for Ferrari—in this case, unfortunately, their drivers couldn't make the podium today. But when you see such an army of fans it's just an incredible sight.

      Honestly I can say this might be the best podium of the season in terms of atmosphere and the number of people. The crowd here is having fun, people enjoy their time at the race, and I'm glad I have a part in that.