It was a tense finish for the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday. Canadian GP race winner and world champion Max Verstappen held off the charge from Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in the final laps.

The Spaniard, who put immense pressure on the Red Bull driver and raced him to the line, could only finish second. It was a close battle between the two drivers who were giving it their all on the track.

After the race, the Red Bull F1 team took to their social media to share their emotions after an intense race. “A duel that had us off our seat lap after lap,” wrote the team in the caption.

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The Dutch driver, too, enjoyed his late-race battle with the Ferrari driver and mentioned it was proper racing.

World champion Max Verstappen left overjoyed after his battle against Carlos Sainz

Verstappen revealed both drivers did not leave anything on the table whilst fighting against each other for the race win. He acknowledged the fact that Sainz was faster than him in the race, but he managed to hold him off.

“It was a tough race. I expected to have a little bit more pace, but we seemed to lack a little bit compared to Carlos… It was a bit more difficult than I expected. It was proper racing, proper pushing. I had my moments where I had a bit of oversteer, then I looked in the mirror and I saw Carlos having the same amount of moments! So it was really on the edge, but that’s good to see,” said Verstappen.

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This was the first race in the season where the Spanish driver was on the same level as his rival in Red Bull. If he had won in Montreal, it would have been his first race win in 150 race starts. Interestingly, with the same amount of race starts, Verstappen has won 26 races in his career.

Both drivers were previously teammates in Toro Rosso and made their debut together in 2015. Hopefully, we will see many battles between them in the coming races, as the one in Canada was amazing.