Max Verstappen makes 'one second' declaration after George Russell defeat

Max Verstappen has conceded he likely would not have won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix even if he had started higher up in the order.

A challenging qualifying session for the Dutchman saw him line up for the start of the race in eighth position.

As he made his way through the field in the opening stint, he found himself behind George Russell after a safety car intervention shortly after the halfway stage.

Verstappen pushed to get in front of the Mercedes driver, but fell short at the line by just under two-tenths of a second, missing out on his first victory of the season.

While Verstappen possessed impressive speed during the race, he does not think it would have automatically translated to a position on the top step of the podium.

"Even if I had started second, I think [with] the pace of George, it would have been very hard to pass," Verstappen told media including RacingNews365.

"So maybe I could have followed him a bit better, of course, than in that first stint.

"Then you box, you're second, behind, and then probably we would have done the same race, just pushing each other along.

"It would have made my first stint a bit easier instead of overtaking all the cars that I had to.

"For sure the soft tyre was much better than the medium because the first few laps in the first stint were very strong.

"The tyres were just not working, and it was quite a bit of just surviving in the first stint, trying to go as long as possible."

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Verstappen found final Baku stint 'very enjoyable'

Verstappen's headache of deciding when to switch over to the soft tyre was eased when a safety car was called following a crash involving Alex Albon.

As Verstappen pushed to try and get ahead of Russell, the Mercedes driver was able to match his pace as he held on for victory.

"And then the safety car actually came at the right time to swap to the soft tyres," Verstappen said.

"And then I have to say that those last laps were very enjoyable because there was barely any deg, really.

"We were just pushing to the end, and the gap was always, like, one second, 1.1, so that was nice.

"It looked close on the line, but I think that was more because I think George suffered from a little bit of boost lag in 15 with the yellow flag.

"So if you look at the last stint, it was always one second, so that's probably also where we would have finished."