An epic battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton thrilled everyone at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. The dominant Max, who was made a perfect pole position, was totally disappointed that inconsistent track limits rules.

Verstappen dominated all practice sessions, and he secured his fourth F1 career pole in Bahrain. The Red Bull ace take all control of the race from the initial stage but lost his initial lead when the Brit has undercut the Dutchman into the dominated after the early first pit stops.

After the second pit stop, Verstappen has resumed the battle with the 10 laps fresher tire. The Red Bull was able to attack Hamilton. Finally, Max overtook Lewis on Lap 53 but running too wide and giving the place back following the team’s instruction.

Max clearly reveals that during the post-race press conference, track limit rules at Bahrain were inconsistent and confusing. Race winner Lewis also admits that it was complicated and very confusing.

Post-Race Press Conference: – Question: (Scott Mitchell – The Race) Question to Lewis and Max: just on what happened at Turn 4. We’ve heard a couple of people – Christian Horner was just telling us that one of the frustrations was that the track limit was inconsistent – so it’s not necessarily an issue that Max, you have to give up the place again because those are the rules, but there were different rules at different stages. How did you view the track limits situation at Turn 4?

Verstappen: Well, throughout the race I was told that people were going wide so they told me to do the same because you do gain lap time doing it, so I did, and then at one point they told me not to do it any more. I don’t know. In qualifying it was not allowed, your lap time got deleted and so I don’t know how it got to the point where people were doing it without getting warnings but at the end of the day, when I was fighting Lewis, I went outside of the track limits, so I think quite quickly the race director was onto us to tell me to give the position back to him and that’s exactly what I did.

Hamilton: Yeah, I think it’s a difficult one. It was very confusing. Most tracks we’re not allowed to put four wheels outside the white line but this weekend on that particular corner we weren’t allowed to on Friday. In actual fact you could go two wheels outside the line but you can’t go past the blue and white kerb, but in the race you can, and that is what had been written so going into the race then you can…But it’s quite a different corner when you have to do one or the other in terms of approach, and it is faster when you can go out, but then whatever is the boundary when you are overtaking? You’re not allowed to overtake off track but halfway through the race, they basically changed their minds and all of a sudden you’re not allowed to go outside that white line, which is fine for me. It’s actually… I think it’s faster in the end for me, it helped me look after my tyres actually, so I’m grateful for the call and ultimately it meant that Max wasn’t able to overtake off track.

Q: (Abhishek Takle – Midday) Max, Lewis spoke earlier about how it’s a bit of an unknown how Mercedes and Red Bull will fare against each other on different circuits, so does today feel like a bit of a missed opportunity in that context?

Verstappen: Of course I’m disappointed, but in a way it’s a long season. We’ll have 22 more opportunities to do better.

Q: And Max, knowing the nature of Imola, the circuit we’re going to next, do you think that’ll suit your car?

Verstappen: It’s difficult to say to be honest. Quite a few things have changed, also the tyres. We go there at a different time of the year so I guess we’ll just find out by driving. I’m excited to go there, it’s a great track. We’ll see.