The Dutchman won his 130th race for Red Bull Racing on Sunday ahead of Britain’s Lewis Hamilton, who completed his 300th Grand Prix, and his team-mate George Russell. Pole position man Charles Leclerc spun off the track in the Ferrari while in the lead on lap 18 and, as second in the World Championship, is now 63 points behind.
For Verstappen, it was the 27th win of his career, which began with Toro Rosso in 2015 and the seventh this year. The 24-year-old now has 233 championship points compared to Leclerc’s 170. Hamilton had never been better than third before this season. The last Grand Prix before the summer break will take place next Sunday at the Hungaroring near Budapest. After that, there are still nine races on the program.
“It was bad luck for Charles”
“The car was fast today. It was bad luck for Charles. I hope he’s okay,” said Verstappen. “We had good pace right from the start. I was able to put pressure on Charles, but the tires get hot quickly in this heat. I couldn’t accommodate a maneuver.” There is still some work to be done before the event in Hungary.
“It’s an unbelievable result for this team,” said Mercedes star Hamilton, who explained that his drinking bottle didn’t work when the temperature outside the car was over 30 degrees Celsius. “We were so far away from the guys up front.”
Leclerc said he may have attacked too much then lost the rear. “It was a bit strange that the car broke out. We have to analyze the data,” he said. “I made a mistake at the wrong moment.” In the car, Leclerc had indicated problems with the gas pedal before he let out a frustrated primal scream. It was the Monegasque’s third retirement as the leader after Spain and Azerbaijan.
Leclerc and Verstappen had pulled away from the field a bit after the start, but the Dutchman couldn’t get past Monegasque even with DRS support. Third was Hamilton in his anniversary Grand Prix, who passed Perez in the first few meters and was able to keep him behind afterwards.
“A nice restart”
Verstappen came into the pits at the end of the 16th lap and then ended up in the front midfield in the middle of traffic. Immediately afterwards, Leclerc made the descent into the tire wall, which necessitated a safety car deployment. That flushed Verstappen to the top as all the competition in front and behind him had new tires put on. The World Champion now led a platoon of Hamilton, Perez, Russell and Sainz, who had started 19th on hard tyres.
The Spaniard overtook Russell and Perez but then served a five-second pitlane penalty for unsafe exit and dropped back to fifth. In the final phase, Russell left Perez after a virtual safety car phase after the race had been approved and gave Mercedes the first double podium of the season. “It was a nice restart,” said the Briton. “We had good pace today.”
Source: Nachrichten
