Despite regaining the Formula One championship lead in Turkey, Max Verstappen knows the fight against Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes would be “not easy.”

Verstappen went six points ahead of Hamilton in the drivers’ standings on Sunday after finishing second in a wet Turkish Grand Prix at Istanbul Park.

Hamilton had a two-point advantage going into the weekend, but was forced to start 11th due to an engine penalty. He recovered to finish fifth, despite Mercedes’ decision to leave him out longer on his first set of intermediates in order to try and finish even higher, which caused some radio frustration.

Verstappen failed to put up any real challenge  to race winner Valtteri Bottas, who won his first race this season for Mercedes with a 14.5-second lead at the finish.

Verstappen believed that Mercedes was “definitely quicker this weekend” and that Red Bull “didn’t get it together,” showing that even after regaining the championship lead, he would face a tough challenge to win the title.

“In the wet, they seem to have a bit of the edge as well,” Verstappen said.

“We’ll have to analyse of course why we were not competitive here, and I do think they probably stepped it up a bit more.

“Even with the points lead, it’s not going to be easy.

“I think I said it before we even started the weekend, so far we’ve had a really good year. It’s not going to change the world for me if I finish first or second at the end of the day. But I’m always going to give my best.

“We’ll see again in Austin how it’s going to go. We won’t give up, we’ll always try to do the best we can.

“Hopefully in the end, for the championship, it is going to be enough. But if it isn’t, I’m not going to sleep less.”

Verstappen had been within a couple of seconds of Bottas at periods in the first stint, and he looked to gain an advantage by switching to a second set of intermediates before Mercedes came in.

Mercedes replied one lap later to ensure Bottas kept his lead, with Verstappen opting not to push in the final stages to try to close the gap and retain second.

“Considering our whole weekend, being a bit off-pace compared to Mercedes, I think we had quite a decent race,” Verstappen said.

“There was no point where I could attack Valtteri, and he was just managing his race also very well and looking after his tyres.

“Also I had Charles [Leclerc] quite close behind me in the first stint, he had very good pace as well. At one point, I said yeah, the tyres are pretty gone, they were completely work to slicks, so it was quite tricky out there when the track is like it was.

“So we decided to box, and basically after the stop, 20 laps to go I think, just decided to bring it home. I anyway didn’t have the pace to fight Valtteri, so there was also no need to be within two or three-tenths to try and just follow him.

“[I] just saved the tyres to the end basically.”

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