Max Verstappen will fight anybody on the racetrack “as long as we are fighting for first”, he has claimed.
The Red Bull driver heads to the first race this weekend in Australia with high expectations of a close battle with Mercedes at the front of the grid.
Based on testing, that does seem to be the most likely outcome, but with others always capable of springing a surprise, Max insists he will beat whoever he has to, to win.
“For me, it doesn’t matter who I am fighting as long as we are fighting for first,” Verstappen said via Crash.net. “That, for me, is the most important.
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“If it is a pink car or grey or red, fighting against me it doesn’t matter. Nor if it is a six-time world champion or a rookie in the car.
“For me, it is all the same, I just want to win as that is what we are here for and it’s the same for the team. Hopefully from the start now we can be really competitive and start fighting for those positions.
“At the end of the day when you look over the last 10 years and you see the results you are not going to think about if you were fighting a world champion so for me I just want to win.”
Key to taking that next step will the performance of Honda, who have certainly closed the gap dramatically to Mercedes in recent years.
And their head of F1 operations, Masashi Yamamoto, is hopeful looking ahead.
“We are making every effort to be there and fight for the championship,” he commented.
“We had some unfortunate races last year, losing out in some of them, but we must avoid having those sort of races this year.
“Max says he wants to get on the podium at all the races, which is an aim we must support.
“From my point of view, it’s all about management. The structure is really efficient and there are many things we have learned from our first year with Red Bull, such as how to put personnel into suitable positions and what is the most efficient way to operate.”
And seeing progress this year is also crucial for Verstappen having committed his future to Red Bull until 2023, barring any escape clauses.
But he remains confident that the trust he has shown will be repaid.
“When it feels good you don’t need to change and everyone in the team is all heading to the same direction and all want to win,” he explained.
“Everybody is very motivated and I really do believe we can get back to those winning ways which Red Bull has had before, so for me, there was no reason to change. I feel really good in the team.”