On a track where he made history as the youngest driving force to win a Formula One race, Max Verstappen hopes to usurp world champion Lewis Hamilton at the Spanish Grand Prix. All eyes will be on Verstappen this week after his remarkable win at Silverstone last weekend. Red Bull’s driving force ended more than 10 seconds ahead of Hamilton and his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas, finishing a streak of 3 consecutive victories for Hamilton and 4 straight for the team.
Few saw victory coming, except Mercedes, whose tire disorders in the heat played in Verstappen’s cold hands. He was allowed to glimpse a possibility and took it with the confidence of the brand for a ninth victory in his career, even joking with his team’s radio race engineer on the last lap while others in the garage bit their nails.
“I was joking about the hydration and disinfection of his hands,” said Christian Horner, Red Bull team director. “But he showed how much he was at the time. Verstappen’s dry brain is as sharp as its reflexes and is a refreshing replacement for the avalanche of previous angry peroratas in their career.”
“Let’s leave this week’s (commentary) a surprise, but I have to move on,” the Dutch pilot said.
Since Mercedes has struggled to cope with tyres in unusually high temperatures for England, Red Bull’s hopes of challenging Mercedes in the warmth of Spain are legitimate.
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Mercedes, who dominated F1 as Red Bull did from 2010 to 2013, is aware of it.
“We took advantage of the merit of the last few days to better perceive the problem,” said Toto Wolff, Mercedes’s racing director. “Our functionality looks better in slightly cooler conditions.” Mercedes had problems in Spain four years ago, for very other reasons, while fellow conflicting teammates Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided 3 laps after the start and came out here.
Opportunist Verstappen won this race on his Red Bull debut at the age of 18, surprising the F1 audience with the callous audacity of his driving. He’s achieved six more podiums in an extraordinary year.
Now he needs a chance at Hamilton, who says he’s ahead of a sustained Red Bull Challenge.
“It’s unbelievable, ” said the British star. “I have races where they’re tough.” Hamilton points to a seventh global name for equivalent to Michael Schumacher’s record and leads Verstappen, second, through 30 rankings.
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Verstappen’s challenge is that it is enough to rely on hot tracks to close the gap, given Hamilton’s significant advantage and in a calendar shortened by the coronavirus pandemic.
In addition, Verstappen wants great functionality in the classification, since 21 of the 29 races played in it have been won since pole. Fast forward at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with its combination of low and high speed curves, is very difficult.
Hamilton holds the F1 record with 91 poles in his career, while Verstappen has two, underlining how the speed difference between his cars remains a setback, no matter how dazzling Verstappen’s driving may be.
BACK PEREZ; NEW VETTEL CHASSIS
After attending any of the races at Silverstone while recovering from the coronavirus, Mexican driving force Sergio Pérez will return to the wheel of Racing Point.
Pérez has been given the go-ahead through the FIA’s guiding framework after giving negative in COVID-19, ending Nico Hulkenberg’s brief return to F1 as his last-minute replacement.
Ferrari, meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel’s disgruntled chassis.
The four-time F1 champion had the worst start to the season since 2008 and has not yet finished in the five most sensitive. His final year with the proud Italian manufacturer became annus horribilis and he occupied an unhappy 13th place in the standings with only 10 points.
Returning at the end of last season, he failed to finish 3 of the last 8 races and his last podium in a moment position in Mexico nine races ago. For a driving force with 53 wins, this is an incredibly mediocre comeback, even if your team is also guilty of an inconsistent strategy combined with poor decision-making and a lot of design problems.
He made an inconsolable figure in last Sunday’s race, telling them that they “lost” their calls and struggled to find answers about why he finished 12th.
“Sebastian will have a new chassis because, after Silverstone’s post-race analysis, we detected a small defect caused by a strong effect on a sidewalk,” said Simone Resta, the team’s chassis engineering manager. “It was the logical resolution to be taken.” Things can get better for Vettel in Spain, although they can hardly get worse.
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