"It’s not really a surprise" - Max Verstappen finds no difference in lapping Lewis Hamilton 'compared to anyone else'

Max Verstappen admitted that lapping Lewis Hamilton during the 2022 F1 Imola GP was not a surprise for him as Mercedes has been slow all season.

The Dutchman picked up 34 points over the course of a fruitful race weekend for him and Red Bull. Verstappen qualified on pole for the Sprint before dramatically beating Ferrari's Charles Leclerc with a late pass. The 24-year-old dominated the feature race on Sunday, breathing life into his title defense with his second win of 2022.

Max Verstappen's supremacy was further highlighted when he lapped Lewis Hamilton, who was struggling in P14 at the time. When asked if that brought him personal satisfaction, the Red Bull driver said:

“I mean, they’ve been slow all year so it’s not really a surprise or I feel happy lapping Lewis [Hamilton] compared to anyone else. But it is what it is. This shows how wrong we’ve got it.”

Meanwhile, Hamilton ruled himself out of the running for the 2022 world championship after a disappointing result in Italy. The Briton said:

“A weekend to forget, that’s for sure. I’m out of it (2022 world championship), for sure. There’s no question about that, but I’ll still keep working as hard as I can to try and somehow pull it back together somehow.”

Verstappen and Perez helped Red Bull reduce the deficit to Ferrari after a stellar showing on their rival's home soil. Christian Horner and Co. only trail the Scuderia by 11 points going into round 5.

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"It's a constant progression of working together" - Max Verstappen on the importance of learning from past mistakes

Max Verstappen stressed the importance of learning and growing from past mistakes.

In a video for Red Bull's sponsor, Bybit, the reigning world champion shared insight into how he tries to improve as a professional and as a person, saying:

“I think it’s a constant progression of working together with the team around you. You get more and more experience of the situations you have been in. Of course, it is never one straight lineup, you have difficult moments and setbacks and you learn from it and I think, at the end of the day, you need to make mistakes or have setbacks to ultimately become a better individual.”

The 24-year-old went on to add, saying:

“It’s just about trying to be better by doing little things. There is not one particular aspect where I think I can do a lot better, it is just about keeping learning and having that motivation to learn because standing still is basically going backwards. It’s all about the attention to detail as well to try and keep learning and just become a little bit better in all different kinds of areas.”

Max Verstappen's brilliant weekend at Imola saw him climb up to P2 in the World Drivers' Championship. The Dutchman still trails championship leader Charles Leclerc by 26 points.