Max Verstappen won the Emilia Romagna GP ahead of Lando Norris by 0.725s, defending from the Britton in the dying stages of the race.
Verstappen admitted after the race that he was struggling with the tires, and he was also complaining about it with his engineer on the radio.
The Dutchman also said that he didn’t have time to breathe as he had to push flat out from start to finish.
“The whole race, I had to push flat out,” Verstappen said after taking his fifth grand prix win of the season. “On the medium tires, we were quite strong. On the hard tires, it was a bit more difficult to manage, especially the last 10 [or] 15 laps – had no grip anymore.
“I was really sliding a lot. I saw Lando [Norris] closing in, so the last 10 laps I was just flat out, but it’s very difficult when the tires aren’t working anymore… I couldn’t afford to make too many mistakes. Luckily we didn’t.”
Verstappen was also happy with how Red Bull managed to turn things around after a slow start on Friday.
“We changed a lot on the car,” Verstappen explained. “Of course we didn’t have a lot of information going into the race.
“Maybe that’s why on the hard tires it was a bit more difficult for us, but I think from where we started the weekend so now we can be incredibly pleased with the pole and the wins, so I will take that”