Max Verstappen has had his fair share of booing at previous British Grands Prix, and feels the Silverstone crowds should not be against him, as the race this weekend is also Red Bull Racing’s home race.
Needless to say, Verstappen has not been a British Grand Prix favorite especially when he’s battling home hero Lewis Hamilton, and the fact the seven-time Formula 1 Champion is nowhere near the Dutchman these days wouldn’t make things better for the latter.
But Red Bull are based in Milton Keynes, close to the Silverstone Circuit, and consider this weekend’s grand prix as their home race and Verstappen insists he is not out to prove anything against the crowds this weekend.
“I don’t know if the crowd is against me, and it’s not an away game, it’s our home Grand Prix as well,” Verstappen told Sky Sports F1 when asked about what he expected in terms of crowd reaction this weekend.
“I spend a lot of time in Milton Keynes. It’s an important race for us, we enjoy coming here, and I don’t see it as having to prove anything against the crowd or whatever,” he added. “I’m just here to have a good race and try to win it.”
Verstappen won the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone in 2020, but in 2021 he had his infamous crash with Hamilton at Copse, while in 2022 he sustained damaged and finished seventh despite having a dominant car.
“Just sometimes you have a bit of bad luck like last year, but we know that our car is probably better and more competitive than last year,” he reflected. “I’m just looking forward to the weekend to be honest and hopefully we can just have a good result.”
Being dominant is not boring
Red Bull and Verstappen have been chasing Mercedes hard during in the past years until finally making the breakthrough in 2021 when the Red Bull ace took his first F1 Title, while in 2022 under the new technical regulations the tables have turned with Mercedes struggling while Red Bull and Verstappen embarked on an era of dominance that is still ongoing.
Asked how he felt about being in such form; he explained: “I put it like this, I’ve had so many years where we were very close, or we thought we were very close, and you think next year is going to be the year, and then again it wasn’t… for various reasons.
“And now that we are finally there, I am really enjoying the moment, I love what we’re doing, what we’re achieving as a team.
“People ask me, ‘is it boring?’ I say, ‘no, it’s not boring, because this is what I worked for.’ All these years together with the team, everyone was so motivated to get into a position like this,” the reigning F1 Champion insisted.
“So for us, we are enjoying it, we are of course also aware of the situation that now the other people are in the role we were before, and they are pushing flat out to try to catch up.
“We know that mentality, we know what they are trying to do, but we just try to stay there and push as hard as we can to stay on top, so for me it’s definitely not boring at the moment,” Verstappen concluded.