Task completed, Verstappen could tell himself shortly after the start. He didn’t have a flawless Hamilton, but he left Valtteri Bottas behind. This was extremely important for the course of the race – if two Mercedes were circling in the lead, they would not give much chance to the others, they could make room for each other – one would hold back the opponent, the other would run away in the meantime. When you drive a wedge between them, they don’t have much strategic options to double.
The young Dutchman lost the chance to fight for the victory before the first pit stops. Hamilton was riding his bike for a second and there was nothing he could do about it. His tires were completely worn. He asked several times for the team to take him to the pits for new ones, but his engineers did not want to. They waited for him to gain some extra time for the Racing Point team. They didn’t want to risk their star getting out of the pit lane among the slower riders. But Verstappen didn’t take it.
“Shall I tell you again? Those stupid tires are dead! ”Verstappen said angrily in the cockpit. “I don’t care if you bring me back to the racing points. I’ll just overtake them, you know? ”
After the race, he explained much more calmly that he did not decide at all whether he would have to overtake other opponents. He looked only at the Mercedes and lost to every driver due to the tires worn off.
“I needed new tires, they didn’t want to give them to me. I was terribly losing, I couldn’t keep up with Lewis. I left the last two laps there for a few seconds, “he complained.
However, the team resisted his pressure, called him to the pits later and returned to the track in front of his rivals from the Racing Point stable. In the end, thanks to a pit stop, Verstappen approached Hamilton for a while, because the Mercedes did not work out and he lost by pulling the rear wheel for a long time. On the contrary, the speed of the Red Bull mechanics was astounding. “Our boys did an amazing job, two stops in two seconds are just not visible,” said Christian Horner, the head of the stable.
Max Verstappen of Red Bull on the Spanish F1 Grand Prix track
But Verstappen was no longer interested in that. He wanted to concentrate only on his ride. He even stopped an engineer on the radio trying to describe how the Mercedes were doing. “Focus on the race, not Lewis,” he advised his technician. “We’re just not as fast as they are.”
After the race, he explained why he did it. He wanted to give everything to his ride and did not want to deal with something he could not influence. Lewis Hamilton was completely different in terms of performance in Barcelona.
“We can’t influence their ride in any way. What they will do, “he said later in an interview with Sky Sports television. “The only thing we control is what we do. We had to make sure that we had the fastest possible strategy, “added the second driver of this year’s World Cup. And according to many, its the fastest racer.
“Max got the absolute maximum out of the car today. From Friday, it was clear that the track in Barcelona did not fit us completely, but he still wedged himself among the faster Mercedes, “praised his favorite, the head of the stable, Christian Horner.
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