Verstappen is happy with behaviour of car after Italian GP win

MONZA: Max Verstappen said the Red Bull team had taken another step forward and is happy with the behaviour of the car following the Italian Grand Prix victory on Sunday.

Verstappen has shown why he is regarded as one of the best drivers in F1 history. Even if a fifth successive Silverstone now looks well out of his reach, the Dutch driver has totally dominated the Italian Grand Prix, winning it by more than 19 seconds.

Verstappen also set up the fastest lap in Formula One history in the qualifying and followed it up with the fastest race in history.

The victory came after an eight-race wait of eight races without a win and followed on from second place at home in Zandvoort the weekend before.

Verstappen said it seems like this weekend has been another step forward and has also shown contentment with the car's performance.

"It just seems like this weekend has been another step forward with the behaviour of the car and that also then shows in the race," Verstappen told reporters.

"Of course, McLaren stayed out to try and gamble for the safety car, and I think that's why the gap is a little bit bigger than it should have been. But still for us, an incredible weekend.

"Up until now we've had a lot of races where we were just shooting left and right a little bit with the set-up of the car. Quite extreme changes, which shows that we were not in control. We were not fully understanding what to do."

The Dutch driver added that the arrival of Laurent Mekies, who has an engineering background, as team principal following Christian Horner's departure in July had helped.

The victory was the team's first of the post-Horner era.

"He's asking the right questions to the engineers -- common-sense questions -- so I think that works really well," he explained.

"Plus, you try to understand from the things that you have tried, that at one point some things give you a bit of an idea of a direction, and that's what we kept on working on.

"I definitely felt that in Zandvoort already we took a step that seemed to work quite well, and then here another step which felt again a little bit better."

Verstappen started from the pole position on Sunday and only minimally challenged over the course of the next 1:13:24.325 as he defeated Lando Norris by 19.207 seconds and Oscar Piastri by 21.351.

Max Verstappen is third in the drivers' standings with 230 points behind McLaren’s Norris (293) in second and Piastri (324) in first.

The four-time world champion has won only three races this season, compared to McLaren, which has won 12 so far.