Max Verstappen may have been tantalisingly close to Lewis Hamilton in the dying stages of the Japanese Grand Prix, but doubts he could have made a move.
Verstappen emerged as Hamilton’s nearest challenger after dispatching Sebastian Vettel on the first lap and very much kept the Briton honest in the latter half of the race. In the closing laps, traffic allowed Verstappen to close up and creep into DRS range, but he was unable to find a way past the Mercedes.
The Dutchman, who passed Hamilton en route to victory in Malaysia, says the effect of the ‘dirty air’ made it very difficult to execute a move.
“I could see Lewis managing his tyres and, with traffic, it seemed difficult for him to follow other cars compared to me,” he said. “When you close up, you lose a lot of downforce. I couldn’t really attack him, but I tried.”
Verstappen says he opted to save his tyres rather than launch an attack as the Red Bull came alive in the second stint.
“Once I got past Seb I could do my own thing. The first stint was alright, Lewis was a bit faster and then on soft tyres we had a better balance,” he explained. “I didn’t want to close up [to Hamilton] too much in case I destroyed my front tyres and I needed them at the end.”
It was a comparatively “lonely” race for teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who picked up his ninth podium of the campaign.
“The race was pretty lonely when I lost out at the start and then lost touch a little bit like last week [in Malaysia],” the Aussie said. “It wasn’t that exciting from my point of view, but I then had Valtteri coming at the end so actually having a bit of pressure made it more exciting, it was good fun.
