TREMAYNE: How a teenage Max Verstappen reigned in Spain and ...

“It’s amazing,” he said, looking remarkably fresh and unruffled, if a trifle bemused. “I mean, this race felt like an endurance race to me, especially the last 10 laps. I couldn't believe that I was leading. I could hold on to the tyres and I think we did the best strategy possible. I can’t believe it!”

At 18 days, seven months and 16 days old, he became the youngest-ever Grand Prix winner, but just how much of a surprise was that remarkable success to him?

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“It’s a very big surprise,” he admitted. “Of course I didn’t expect that. On the first stint on the soft I could keep up quite well after the two Mercedes crashed. But at one point, if you are so close behind the first car you start to destroy your tyres so I lost a bit of ground and we decided to pit and went on to the medium tyre.

“Then the car felt great. From there on I was just managing my speed, my tyres; I was just managing everything. At the end I think we did the best strategy possible. Especially in the last stint I got quite a bit of pressure from Kimi behind, but on this track it’s quite difficult to overtake so for me it was a case of not making mistakes, no front locking, so that’s what I tried to do and it worked.