Despite being unable to challenge George Russell for victory at the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen insisted second place was the best outcome possible given excessive tyre degradation on his RB21.
Verstappen started from second on the grid and tried to put pressure on Russell early on but could not pass him as he started to drop back, struggling with tyres with Kimi Antonelli in the other Mercedes closing in on him, which pushed Red Bull Racing to call the Dutchman into the pits earlier, hoping to undercut Russell, which did not work.
And that was the theme of the race for Verstappen, who showed decent speed after changing tyres but then dropped back and in the end had to settle for second in the race that finished behind the Safety Car that was sent out after McLaren's Lando Norris drove into the back of his teammate, Oscar Piastri.
With Piastri finishing fourth and Norris not scoring, Verstappen closed the gap to them in the 2025 Formula 1 drivers' championship.
"Today we definitely maximised everything that we had available," Verstappen said in Red Bull Racing's race report. "We drove quite a defensive race today and it was quite tough out there.
"The tyre degradation was quite high and in the first two stints we were going through the tyres quite quickly. We were quite aggressive with our strategy to stay ahead and during the last pit stop I thought it might be difficult to make it to the end.
"The last stint helped us a bit with the lighter fuel load and we were a bit more kind on the tyres which was positive. If you look at the whole race this was the maximum result possible.
"We didn't really have the pace to fight upfront and had a bit too much degradation to be in the fight for the win, so I'm happy to be P2," the four-time F1 champion admitted. "The gap wasn't big to George but I didn't think I had the pace to fight for the win.
"There are lots of positives from the weekend: as a Team we did the best performance possible, got it right and our car was in a decent window.
"Looking to the next race we have a bit of work to do with our tyre management and the degradation but lots of positives to take forward," Verstappen concluded.
McLaren did well avoiding a clash between their drivers until now
Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner pointed out the benefit of having the McLaren drivers clashing and losing points as Verstappen capitalized on that on a day when Mercedes were far from reach.
He commented: "It was a good race by Max today, he was competitive from start to finish, so it's been a solid day in the Drivers' Championship and those are good points for Max.
"We were competitive in the last stint and there were probably points in the race we could have maybe pushed a bit harder, but certainly that final stint was pretty competitive.
"We will focus on the race and take the positives out of it," Horner went on. "McLaren obviously had a difficult race in the end today and you have to be there to capitalise on it in the end, you can only focus on yourselves.
"McLaren have two guys racing hard and they have actually done quite well that it's taken 10 races for something like that to happen.
"That is racing and on days like that you have to try and take advantage. Mercedes have done a good job here this weekend and it just shows how things can shift around.
"Well done to them and well done to George, we will fight back at the next one. I thought as a Team we did a good job today and got everything out of it that we could," Horner concluded.
Verstappen leaves Montreal still third in the 2025 F1 drivers' championship, but he has closed the gap to Norris to 21 points, while his gap to Piastri dropped from 49 points to 43.
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