Beating Bottas means little to Max

Jamie Woodhouse
Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen fist pump pa.jpg

Beating Valtteri Bottas to P2 means little to Max Verstappen.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen said whether or not he beats Valtteri Bottas to P2 in 2020 means very little to him.

Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton have taken their dominance arguably to a new level in 2020 with the W11. The Briton has won 10 of the 14 races to take place so far this season.

That has left Verstappen, Mercedes’ closest challenger, on most Sunday afternoons trying to wrestle P2 off the other Mercedes of Bottas.

Briefly Verstappen had been P2 in the Drivers’ Championship and ahead of Bottas, but back-to-back retirements at Monza and Mugello meant that hard work was undone.

However, Verstappen said he would take little joy from beating Bottas to P2 anyway.

“Not particularly, I think at the end of the day it only matters that you win,” he told Sky F1.

“I mean I don’t even know how it was in the Championship, we were [ahead] for a bit, but not that long because Valtteri had more points from the beginning of the season, but then of course he didn’t score points because of the puncture at the first weekend at Silverstone.

“And then I had two good results at Silverstone which made me jump him, but then quite quickly I fell back to third again because of retirements.

“No it doesn’t really mean a lot. It doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t give it a good go, I still want to finish [the season] off in a nice way, with hopefully a lot of points, but no.

“Let’s say it like this, retired at some point I will not look back and be happy about a second or a third place.”

Still, Verstappen’s achievement in 2020 have to be applauded considering the dominance of Mercedes. He after all has a race win to his name which came at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone

“Yeah, but you still always finish behind one [Mercedes],” he replied.

Alex Albon Red Bull Turkish Grand Prix

Get your hands on the official Red Bull 2020 collection via the Formula 1 store

With three races to go in the 2020 season Red Bull arrive at the Bahrain Grand Prix, race one of two at the Bahrain International Circuit, with a strong chance of a podium after missing out on the top three in 2019.

But after a difficult Turkish Grand Prix where Verstappen finished P6 in the wet due to a couple of spins, the Dutchman just hopes for a return to form so that he can try to get “very close” to Mercedes.

“We’ll just try to be very close to Mercedes again,” he explained.

“It should be a normal weekend again with normal grip conditions, and I just hope that we will be competitive again.”

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