Max Verstappen reveals major F1 'game over' disbelief: 'This is not happening'

Max Verstappen has described his disbelief at the safety car being deployed in the Mexico City Grand Prix - just as he passed the pit entry. 

On Lap 43, the safety car was deployed at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez following Valtteri Bottas's huge crash at the end of the long main straight, with Verstappen leading the race from Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. 

Hamilton was able to dive into the pits in time, but fortunately for the Red Bull driver, he did not miss out on the chance to change tyres as the race was then red-flagged for barrier repairs, with tyre changes under red flag conditions permitted.

Following the second standing restart, Verstappen held onto the lead from a punchy Hamilton, and through a further safety car period, fended off the Ferrari by 0.799s to land a 74th career win, as he described his fears of his race being "game over" when missing the pit entry.

"Charles was very close, but at the same time, it's very hard to follow around here because everything overheats," he told media, including RacingNews365, about his race.

"That probably helped me as well because I think at one point Charles had to back off just for cooling, and that was quite nice for me.

"But at the same time, when I saw the safety car come out just out of the last corner and I couldn't box, I was like: "There's no way this is happening now," because that was then probably game over for me. 

"Then, of course, it ended up being a red flag, so then it reset everything. I was a bit worried because our starts this year have not been amazing, but luckily, twice, they have actually been good, and that then made my way till the end. But it was not made easy. 

"I mean, Lewis was on my gearbox, pushing hard. It was basically a qualifying lap [every lap] until the end; it was tough out there. It was a tough race to the end, just to not make any mistakes."