Australian Grand Prix: Max Verstappen: red flags ‘bit of a mess’, Fernando Alonso on ‘rollercoaster of emotions’

World champion Max Verstappen admitted that Sunday’s chaotic Australian Grand Prix ended up being a “bit of a mess” after there were multiple red flags.

The first came early on when Charles Leclerc crashed out after a collision with Lance Stroll. But the real drama came in the final stages of the race when with two laps to go Kevin Magnussen crashed out.

That led to a two-lap finale that was also red flagged after chaos on the restart that saw Carlos Sainz spin Fernando Alonso and the two Alpines collide, amongst other things.

After another lengthy delay it was decided that race would restart and the cars would do a formation lap behind the safety car to complete the race.

Speaking in the podium interviews Verstappen said “We had a very poor start, and lap one I was careful because I had a lot to lose and they had a lot to win.

“After that, the pace of the car was quick – you could see that straight away.

“We were always there, waiting for the DRS for the chance to pass. But with these red flags, I don’t know.

“The first one, maybe you can do it but the second one I don’t understand.

“So, it was a bit of a mess, but we survived everything and we won, which, of course, is the most important thing.

“From my side, I just tried to avoid contact [on the battle with Hamilton]

“It’s okay, we had good pace and we passed them anyway, but it’s something for the next race to take into account.

“It’s great to win here – my first win, it’s been a while for the team as well so very, very happy.”

Hamilton was unsurprisingly thrilled with the result, saying he felt it wouldn’t be impossible to try and close the gap.

“It was (a crazy race).

“I have had the best week here this week.

“It was really unlucky for George today. On our side, we have got to look into our reliability, which has generally been really good, so that is really unfortunate.

“I still feel uncomfortable in the car, I don’t feel connected to it so I am driving as best I can with that disconnect and I am working as hard as I can to try and create that connect but it is a long project.

“But still, considering we have been down on performance and the straight pace compared to the Red Bulls, for us to be up here fighting with Aston, it is just amazing at this point in the season.

“We have got to keep on fighting. Big. big thank you to everybody back at the factory, let’s keep pushing.

“If we can close that gap, it is going to be tough, but it isn’t impossible.”

For Alonso, who at one point thought he was going to be out of the points after the hit from Sainz, said it was a “rollercoaster” of a day.

“Rollercoaster of emotions with many things going on. It was difficult to understand what was going on at the end but it was a good race for us.

“Lewis [Hamilton] did an incredible job. I couldn’t match or get close enough, but we’ll take P3.

“P3 and P4 is an amazing Sunday for the team. We have three third places now, let’s get higher on the list.”